Going On
by Antonia Caenis
Summary: Almost two years after Ruth's death an unlooked for opportunity for change occurs in Harry's life – if he will accept it.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Some of you know that I have had this story sitting, completed, for almost three years. After some recent tweaking, here it finally is. Originally written when Post Finem was on hiatus after the end of s10 there may be the occasional superficial similarity to aspects of that story. My thanks to Batteredpen for allowing me to use her interpretation of events immediately post-Estuary and bend it to suit.

**1\. Late May 2012.**

It was always the same. Every time he visited, the walk through the grounds felt unreal until he rounded the final corner and was confronted, yet again, with that irrefutable, terrible truth. _She was dead._ And, as always, it hurt. _God, __**Christ**__, it hurt_. This day was no different. It had been months since he had last visited and the grief that day had been so overwhelming it seen him end up on a wooden seat high above the sea in the fading dusk contemplating the futility of it all, including why he persisted in visiting when he knew there was nothing there of _her_. The physical remains, yes, but they were out of sight, defined only by the polished sombreness of the Larvikite he had chosen to commemorate her existence. There was, however, no hint of the essence of the person that she had been, in all her complexity. That was gone, consigned to history, a fading memory and he didn't think he could stand it. There were so many of those shadows in his mind, dating back almost forty years to his mother, that ethereally beautiful blonde woman who had tried so hard to steer him back on to the straight and narrow during his turbulent teens and first year at university, only to die without warning while he was still acting the young fool, and now Ruth had joined them, right when the future should have been so different. So very, very many, gone far too soon.

As he approached the foot of the grave he allowed it all to wash over him yet again, recognising that the intensity was at least as much due to the date as it was to the reality. He really _shouldn't _be surprised that it was hurting every bit as much today as it had on that terrible day exactly twelve months ago, to the minute, when his personal Harpy had come home to roost from events back in what felt like the mists of pre-history. Events that had started with one lie and continued with another, a chimaera cobbled together with manipulative skill by a psychopathic adversary who had proven to be more deadly than even he had ever been. God knows he had been no angel which must have made Elena Platonovna the hand-maid of Satan. He had once tried to explain that to the woman in front of him now, that he was drenched in the blood of the innocent as well as the guilty and that he was irretrievably damaged as a result, better off out and away before he could hurt anyone else but she wouldn't have it and so, against all his better instincts, for and because of her, he had stayed. Then, apparently inevitably, she had pointlessly paid the ultimate price for his stupidity and her own wilfulness. Even worse, she had paid after all they had managed to achieve were a few precious, happy and oh so fleeting moments, when a tendril of a possible future, together, had first lifted its fragile head only to be immediately and permanently crushed. And _that_ he knew he couldn't stand.

His vision blurred and his throat constricted as he slowly, carefully, sat on the edge of the elegant, understated stone monument that bore her name, suddenly consumed by the grief, almost as raw and bleeding as it had originally been for all that he now recognised that it was more for the loss of her future, what she might have become, as it was for the loss of his, with her. The surprise at its force on this day was mostly because lately he had thought the darkest depths of despair were behind him, that he was through all the traditional stages and into the last and hardest one, that of acceptance, for all that, now and then out of the blue, something (usually small: a hint of perfume, a cat who looked like Fidget sitting on a window sill, once the appearance in a late night TV show that he wasn't even watching of a young actor who bore more than a passing resemblance to Sasha Gavrik) would send him back into the slough of despond where it was uniformly dark, cold and featureless. Today the trigger may well have been an old folk song on the radio just as he was arriving here in the town where she was buried: it was the sound of the hammered dulcimer that had first got his attention, before the words had grabbed him and twisted his heart:

_...There is a ship and it sails the seas and it's loaded deep, as deep could be_

_ But not so deep as the love I'm in and I know not how, if I sink or swim._

_ The water is wide, I cannot cross over. Neither have I the wings to fly._

_ Give me a boat that can carry two and both shall row, my love and I..._

Neither sinking nor swimming, instead he had been adrift for the last year, carried hither and yon by the tides of grief and anger that had followed the loss of so many – Lucas, old Max, Tariq, Jim, Ruth, even Sasha, in a way – in such a short space of time. The water between him and them was indeed uncrossable by all means but one and that was a boat he was not willing to catch before nature or the Fates decided it was his time. He had considered it, in the darkest hours of those first days but, as he had on the previous occasion that he had contemplated the option, after the terrible destruction of the little family of Archie, Amanda and little Lucy, lost at least partially as a result of _Graham's_ obstinacy, he had dismissed it as neither appropriate nor of any _use_, to anybody.

He had generally been able to hold himself together at work through a combination of decades of practice and because he could feel her presence there and it was somehow comforting – he could almost pretend that she would come sweeping in at any time, without warning, as she had always done – but perhaps he was kidding himself about which stage of grief he was really at. After all, the blinds of his office were still permanently drawn to block the view of her desk and the fact that she no longer occupied it. That wasn't acceptance.

Outside of work it was harder, irrespective of whether he was here at her side or miles away, slogging through the midnight dark as he attempted to walk out his demons. Harder to remember, harder to accept, harder to even think about. He had sought – well, been sent to, after a couple of minor but very uncharacteristic melt-downs in the office – some assistance on coping with the grief; occasionally the strategies worked but more often they didn't. The past was almost overwhelming and he couldn't stand it. Sitting there, on the edge of her monument, beautiful but as cold as she herself now was, staring at and yet through the chiselled lines of her name while his fingertip absently stroked one of the large, luminous feldspars in the highly polished black surface, he deliberately let his mind wander back over the previous year as some sort of warped challenge to the never-ending anguish...

Much though he wished otherwise, the first half-hour of the rest of his life was one that he could, and would always, remember with perfect clarity and a searing pain that was almost too much to take. The blood – too much blood – with its metallic tang, everywhere he looked; the catching breath as lungs were compressed inside a rapidly filling chest cavity; then a few final, resigned words as the creeping cold completed its journey leaving the beautiful eyes dimmed and the musical voice stilled forever. There had been no immediate denial or desperate bargaining – he was too pragmatic, too experienced in death for that – but the finality had ripped through him and, this time, the grief would be neither constrained nor consoled. There was a period – whether seconds or minutes he did not know – when the world froze in his shock and disbelief and he thought his own heart might stop, followed by tears and a pain as great as any other he had known, along with devastating helplessness as he had farewelled her and their future with a gentle kiss, the only gesture that seemed appropriate. Calum had said something and the trio had retreated to give him space and time, an offer he had used to gather Ruth into his arms, her body already cooling..._so fast, the end is so fast..._

When he had returned to the present, after another immeasurable time, he had become aware that the others were still there, quietly guarding him but equally quietly, furiously, discussing what was to be done with the mess inside the bunker.

"_Erin, we've got about eight minutes before the helicopter gets here. We're going to have to do something with Elena Gavrik," Calum said as Dimitri returned from checking on Sasha who was quiet now, fiercely clutching the wound on his leg and retreating to the place in is mind where he would stay for a very, very long time. The woman glanced at him in surprise._

"_No, we don't, not after what she did. Ilya only did what we all wanted to and put her out of her misery and he's got enough money to get a good barrister to get him off the hook—"_

"_Calum's right," Dimitri interrupted, earning a disapproving look. "We can't let this get out or it will destroy everything. We can call this—" he gestured to the pair in front of them, Harry cradling Ruth and apparently oblivious "—for what it is – Sasha having a nervous breakdown after the truth came out about Elena and out seeking a vengeance that went wrong – but we have to cover up Ilya's actions."_

_He had a point, she supposed, so she answered begrudgingly, grey-blue eyes never leaving the couple,_

"_What did you have in mind?"_

_The two men glanced at each other, knowing that there was really only one option and remembering all too well the last occasion they had acted together to do the same thing for the same reason. _

"_We're going to have to do what we did to John Grogan. Make it look like a suicide."_

_Dimitri's words sent a chill down the woman's spine as a primal fear of interfering with the dead flooded from her amygdala and coupled with her distaste for bending the rules, a distaste she was having to grapple with and subsume more and more every day in this job._

"_I don't know, Dimitri—"_

The words had filtered, slightly muffled, through the dome of silence and he had clung to them as some form of sanity, a liferaft in a whirlpool of madness, something to focus on so he would _not_ have to focus on the other, just for a moment. His mind clutching at the perverted stability offered by _regnum defende_, he remembered lifting his eyes to them and grinding out his response.

"Do it." The trio had turned to see him gazing at them with eyes of onyx from a face ravaged by grief, guilt and despair. "They're right. If news of this leaks then the Partnership will be destroyed, Ruth and the others will have died for _nothing _and _she_ will have won." There was no doubt to whom that pronoun, delivered with deadly venom, belonged. They remained, speechless for a moment and he could see in their eyes that they couldn't quite believe he was both listening and still giving orders under the current circumstances – no doubt it would add to the entirely erroneous belief that his veins flowed with ice water – but he didn't expect them to be able to see the truth, that he was screaming inside, howling like a banshee at a pitch far above that of human hearing, as his soul ripped and he tried to cling to normality, or their version of it, with the utter desperation of a man trying desperately to fight the enormous gravitational pull of his universe collapsing into a black hole. With no immediate response he had finally ordered, "Go. You don't have much time," before returning his attention to the dead woman, tenderly brushing a lock of dark hair from her face with his bloodied right hand. Then there had been nothing, just a return to that silent stillness, until the thumping of the air ambulance rotors and the wind whipped up by their down-draft bought reality crashing back into his world.

Wiping his hands over his face he looked up, focussing on the steeple of the ancient church at the far end of the graveyard while he returned to the present and considered why his memory was almost non-existent for the couple of days afterwards. Maybe because none of it really mattered, compared to the moment of loss; maybe because everything had just stopped registering, his mind unable to record any more. He really didn't know, or even care much. About all he could remember was that Erin and the immediate team had seemed to be there all the time, one way or another, at least at first...

_She had taken him home many hours later when he was finally ready to leave Ruth and refused to leave him alone until she had extracted Malcolm's name from him as about the only other person he might want to see at this time. Finally persuading him to go and remove the blood from his hands and body, she had called the other man and briefly explained, registering the distress in his voice as he confirmed he would be over as soon as he could get there. When Harry had returned, quietly, he had found Erin curled up in tears in the sitting room and realising she was hurting as well had lifted her to her feet and they had held each other, crying helplessly; they were in the same position 10 minutes later when the doorbell rang._

...then Malcolm had appeared as though conjured up from nowhere.

_Malcolm had joined them in their despair when he had arrived, the three of them forming a tryptich of intense sorrow until Harry had come to himself enough to realise how late it was – nearly 3am - and gently sent Erin home to her daughter and mother, after which he and Malcolm had spent the rest of the night drinking (a lot) and talking (a little, but enough). Erin had returned with Calum less than six hours later to find that Malcolm had, quite literally, just closed the door to the sitting room where Harry had finally succumbed to an unquiet sleep. For the next thirty six hours either Malcolm, Erin, Calum or Dimitri had taken turns to be there, unobtrusive but ensuring he wasn't left alone until he was ready for it. Malcolm had even insisted, despite his own sorrow and exhaustion, on accompanying him and William Towers on that dreadful visit to Ruth's mother, a day after her daughter's death._

True to form, he had tried drowning the grief in alcohol every night but soon realised that wasn't working, just making things worse. Early on, a couple of nights after the others had first risked leaving him alone and a couple of hours after he had been informed by Calum, gently and showing the tact and sensitivity appropriate to his age that wasn't normally visible, that Jim's body had been repatriated home to Langley so he had missed the chance to bid his old friend a final farewell, he had ended up on his daughter's doorstep in the middle of the night, gaunt, mute, inconsolable; she had finally got him to talk, a very little, at dawn and her continuing presence helped. From then on, he walked, endlessly and no matter what the weather, preferring to be outside rather than at home but that hadn't helped much either. During that terrible period, and still, on some days, another song he had come across somewhere (he could not remember where, or when) became something of an anthem, its wild anguish and drenched, bitter melancholy finding a permanent place in his heart...

_These streets all know me. The shadows whisper._

_ The night keeps looking back at me with neon eyes._

_ And if they've seen you, they're not talking._

_ You'd think by now maybe they'd sympathise..._

_ The sky is crying, the wind's against me._

_ Blows like some fugitive with nowhere left to hide._

_ I'm down to nothing but just this heartache_

_ That I keep carrying around inside..._

_ I take no comfort in my companion._

_ The rain is coming down now wild and uncontrolled._

_ Don't try to stop me, you best take shelter._

_ Tonight the sky will not be consoled..._

_ Out in the rain I keep on walking._

_ Out in the rain like the broken-hearted do._

_ I could be wrong but that's where you'll find me._

_ Out in the rain just looking for you._

After nearly being run down by a bus that he hadn't seen coming on the rainy night after her funeral (_how the hell hadn't you seen a bright red, double-decker bus lit up like a bloody Christmas tree?) _he realised that he wasn't helping himself or honouring her memory – he could just about hear the lecture she would have read him – so he did the only thing he could. As he had first done so many decades before, when Bill had been tortured and murdered, and on more occasions than he cared to admit since, he switched off, erected another impenetrable wall and went back to work, sometimes eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, and waited, internally numb, for some semblance of life to return. Twelve months later, it still hadn't, not completely. And he wasn't sure he wanted to stand it for much longer.

Of course, within the first few weeks organising the funeral and his vengeance had given his days some focus and had, incidentally, resulted in the odd sort of on-going, intermittent friendship he now had with Ilya Gavrik (they caught up every time Ilya passed through London on business, which was several times a year, two old Cold War adversaries who now had no-one else to talk to about those days; not that they did, but the knowledge that they _could_, if they so desired, was strangely comforting) but since then the only thing that was keeping him going was that, according to his eldest, his children apparently still needed him. Then, of course, there was Wes Carter. The golden-haired boy – teenager now – with his mother's cheekbones and dark eyes and his father's mannerisms and laid-back attitude was still a constant in his life, a responsibility that wasn't his to dismiss even if he had wanted to, which he most certainly did not. There was no way on this planet that he was going to inflict any more pain of any sort on any of them, intent instead on repairing the relationships with his own children as well as maintaining the other, attempting to get something, somewhere, right. Which was why he _would _go on standing it.

If he had been hoping for some kind of revelation, ghostly apparition or visitation on this anniversary day he was disappointed, as he knew he would be. Indifferent to human suffering nature went on with its unchanging course: the sun shone, the sky was blue and the breeze, cold though it was, rustled the leaves of the trees in the cemetery quite gently. He could even hear a bird singing somewhere above the distant rumble of traffic. Eventually the bitter, helpless tears dried, replaced by a desolation as harsh and empty as the desert. Leaning forward, he lit the candle lantern in the middle of the flower arrangement he had placed as a crown above her head then, struggling to his feet with joints stiff from sitting in the chill for so long, removed a small vial from his pocket and poured the libation of her favourite wine while speaking a few, appropriate, words of farewell in Latin. He knew she would understand, if there was anything in the idea of an afterlife from where she would be observing him. Not that he thought there was. A few more quiet moments and a final, murmured,

"_Ave atque vale, anima mea*," _

and he turned and walked away, feeling as bleak and empty as the only future he could now foresee.

_Can't go on._

_*Hail and farewell, O my soul_

'The Water Is Wide'. Traditional, performed by Rory Block.

'Out In the Rain'. Written and performed by Julie Miller.


	2. Chapter 2

2\. **September-November 2012.**

Erin had watched him closely, that shadow of her boss, over the past sixteen months. They had all been stunned and disbelieving when he had returned to the Grid a day after the funeral where he had stood, silent and immovable and ravaged by grief, Malcolm standing sentinel next to him on one side and another, younger man (also tall but dark haired, blue eyed and grim, with the fire of justice burning deep in his soul) on the other and the silence being the only thing that had stopped him from collapsing as completely as everyone had expected. At first, after his return, it had appeared that he was back to normal but she, along with the other two survivors of that hideous day, had quickly realised that he was anything but: it was all an act designed to hold himself together for fear of the total disintegration that was likely to happen if he didn't. Although completely on the ball professionally – if anything, frighteningly harder, sharper and more clinical than he had been for years - he was, personally, little more than a shell of who he had been, brittle, fragile, emotionless and preternaturally calm, and so the trio had watched, forming a protective barrier around him of which he wasn't even aware, and hoped that, one day, something of the original man would return.

Occasionally there were moments when she thought he might be coming back to them, flashes of light in eyes or voice, a brief spark of humour in his words, but then something would send him back behind his invisible wall, unapproachable. She had managed to talk to him, once or twice, about why he had returned but all he had said was that there was nothing else he could do when the alternative was to stay at home to wither and die, a pointless action of which Ruth would _not_ have approved. He had also warned her to plan on getting out, before all that was left for her as well was the job, her identity and everything else consumed beyond recognition.

Watching him navigate his way through daily life so very carefully, wrapped in his self-imposed, overly calm isolation and so disengaged from anything personal _it was almost_, she thought, _as though he was waiting for something to wake him up from his torpor_ although neither she nor Dimitri nor Calum could work out what that might be. They knew he was nowhere self-deluded enough to believe that, somehow, Ruth would miraculously return from the dead, he was too grounded in reality, but time and events such as the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics came and went – without incident and apparently, unusually for him, without stress – but still he seemed to be waiting for that which was unknown. Unless it was the ultimate oblivion but none of them believed that of him, either: he had never had a death wish and he had made it abundantly clear to Erin during one of their chats that his priority now was to continue to mend his relationships with his children and if it took him another 30 years to repair the damage then so be it. In the meantime, until whatever it was he was waiting for – redemption, forgiveness, peace? – arrived, there was work. Never-ending work.

On this day it was a particularly fine Autumn morning, even Harry could recognise that, with the sky an eggshell blue above a city glittering in clear, pale gold sunlight. He was feeling slightly more human today and could actually appreciate the view and the warmth of the sun on his face; that very rare weekend on the coast (Norfolk, not Suffolk – he would never be able to cope with Suffolk again) just gone, spent out-doors in the sea air and on the water, had presumably done him some good, as had the news last night that Catherine was finally marrying her partner and, unaccountably and unexpectedly, wanted him to do the traditional thing and walk her down the aisle. That thought made the shadow of a smile flit across his face. At least he had managed to patch things up with her, although Graham was proving to be more intractable but there had even been recent progress on that front as well. From both sides, to the surprise of one if not the other: the father had long recognised the ache of longing to reconnect but the son had refused to until recently and was still battling with the realisation but at least he hadn't rejected the impulse entirely, as he had so often done in the past. Harry had quietly and correctly decided that his son's changing attitude to him was at least as much down to the combination of Graham quietly knuckling down, quite successfully, to university studies and starting a stable relationship with a 'suitable' girl (one who didn't have a string of drug and other charges behind her) who was a post-doctoral researcher as it was to his own efforts but he didn't care, as long as it continued. There would be no more personal relationships for himself, he had decided that long since – he didn't want his uneasy calm shattered by emotions, he wasn't sure he would survive that variety of pain ever again – but if he could get things right with the kids, continue to be a stable reference point for Wes Carter and, maybe, become a half-way decent grand-father, if and when that happened, then that would be enough and he would be content.

The door to the deck opened and soft footsteps approached. He had long since stopped listening for a certain footfall, knowing he would never hear it again but occasionally, such as now, when he was thinking of other things, the setting would make him turn and half expect to see her. Instead, it was Erin, of course, as he knew it would be. She gave an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, Harry, but our visitor has arrived. She'll be on her way up by now so I thought I'd better come and get you."

_Ah, the Cousin from the Antipodes_, he had forgotten that she was arriving today. A diversion foisted on him by the DG that, initially, had annoyed him but now, he realised, would force him to focus on something else for a while... Although he had been working with the woman on and off for well over two decades, mostly at a vast distance, he only had the dimmest memories of what she looked like. Tall-ish with long, dark hair was about it, which probably wasn't bad considering they hadn't actually seen each other in the flesh since Bangkok in 1993. Her laconic sense of humour he was more familiar with: rememberance of her pointed responses to the emails he still occasionally sent, crowing when England had beaten Australia in some sporting event somewhere, made the ghost of a smile appear and disappear as they wound their way down from his roof-top eyrie. No matter what, she would still be under foot for weeks, a stranger on the floor when he still, really, wasn't up to having a stranger there. Or, correctly, another one – he had only in the last few months got used to the oddity of having the new senior analyst on board, over a year after they had been appointed. Sighing, and wondering just how painful the next few weeks were going to be with the alien presence around, he followed the young woman back onto the grid, musing momentarily on how she had grown into her role over the past year or so, although she still wasn't ready to take on his job permanently, lacking the moral flexibility, he liked to call it, required to make a success of the laser-like focus on the defence of the realm that she did have. His instinct to keep her on had been right on that front, at least, even if not on anything much else of recent years.

Dimitri, now his Senior Case Officer, and Waleed, the replacement senior analyst – _he really must stop thinking of the man as a __**replacement**__, _he chided himself absently, _he __**was**__ the analyst and a bloody good one _– were talking to the new arrival when he and Erin returned. Dressed in a sober although exquisitely tailored linen suit the colour of sage and wearing low-heeled court shoes, she was not quite as tall as he remembered – although in the heels she was still looking him in the eye – but had clearly kept herself fitter than he had, which wasn't surprising, given the _penchant _she had always had for martial arts (a black belt in _karate_ and something ridiculously high in _ju-jitsu_, he thought he remembered). The dark hair was collar-length now, not half-way down her back as it used to be, and liberally streaked with silver; what he thought he remembered as a hard, muscular body had softened around the edges with the passing of time and the plethora of crinkles around her eyes when she smiled reminded him that she wasn't much younger than he was, either. Striking, not beautiful, and with a well-modulated contralto, their paths had physically crossed only thrice before, around the time of the collapse of the old Soviet regime, when he had been on one of his periodic secondments to MI6 and she had been with ASIS and they had both been dealing with potential domino-effects from the failure of the communist monolith within their own spheres of influence, his in Western Europe and hers in South East Asia. She had a talent, then, of being able to disappear into the background, to the extent that even her own colleagues could make the mistake of underestimating her, although they only ever made that error once... Since then, they had both lived not dis-similar paths. He had permanently returned to MI5, for his own, personal, reasons; a decade later, she had done something similar, transferring to ASIO from ASIS, although he couldn't know it was on similar grounds, and they had remained intermittently in touch while she had been his equivalent over there, swapping information along with the barbed sporting emails. It wasn't any of that, however, which was the cause of the shock of recognition that hit him like the proverbial lightning bolt when they got close enough to be re-introduced and shake hands; it was when she turned her sea-green eyes to him and he saw the bottomless depths of the old, incurable sadness that they held, for all to see. That was a major change from the last time they had met and his immediate conclusion was that she had to have been where he was now, although he hoped not for the same reason. He wouldn't wish this on anyone.

Hope Johnson also vaguely remembered crossing paths with the younger Harry Pearce, first in West Berlin and later back in London, before that final, very short, reunion in Thailand. In Berlin – his last time doing Six's dirty work, as it turned out – he had, with extreme efficiency, been mopping up the last of a joint operation with a tall, slim, dark-haired young CIA agent whose name she couldn't remember for the moment and was preparing to head home and had, she remembered, been rather glamorous, with a head full of riotous blond curls, that beautiful English skin she so envied, almost irridescent hazel-amber eyes and a voice to die for. Back in London a couple of years later the riotous curls had disappeared, tamed by a civil service cut, and the casual clothes had been replaced by sharp Savile Row suits but the rest was still there, albeit mitigated slightly by the fact he was hobbling around on a broken foot after another run-in with the IRA. In Bangkok, of course, they had both been running around under cover in civvies, he doing a very good impersonation of a sun-burned, bumbling, slightly ignorant English tourist while she was performing her own loud, drunken Australian version of the same thing. It was the current version of the London incarnation that now approached her with a young, rather decorative brunette trotting along behind him. She was about to crack a joke about him only hiring beautiful assistants (Dimitri was a bit of a dish and Waleed was absolutely gorgeous, an Ancient Egyptian pharoah come to life with bronze skin and huge, dark, almond eyes but sporting carefully maintained designer stubble in lieu of the traditional false beard) when she realised something was seriously amiss and the wise-crack died before it was born. Instead of the vital, powerful, charismatic person she was expecting, here was a man locked in deep mourning: slim to the point of being gaunt, which he had never been in the past (trim, yes, but solid and fearsomely fit with it back in the day, although she remembered him once commenting in an email a few years back that he was at risk of turning into a pudding, as they all were, between the twin evils of encroaching age and increasing desk-sitting), dressed in an immaculate black suit and a black and white tie, although he was giving her a welcoming smile as they went to shake hands she noted it got nowhere near to touching his eyes.

It was as much a shock to her as it had been to him when she met his eyes: they were brim full of a very raw and recent pain and hopelessness that was right up there with what her own had been just before the turn of the millenium. She had heard one or two whispers, once it was known that she was heading to London, of some things that had gone very astray a year or two back, including murmurings of an enquiry into his past and something extremely messy involving, first, the Chinese and then a group of Russian nationalist extremists (she had briefly wondered if the latter had anything to do with the whispers of another old stuff up in Berlin, also involving Russians, that she had heard of while there in the late eighties, then dismissed the idea; there was thirty years between the two events, after all, and the Soviet Union was long gone) but she wasn't expecting to see something approaching the scale of her own ancient suffering to be looking back at her. Whatever the cause, she would have to quietly find out some details from his staff to make sure she didn't inadvertently do or say anything that would make his torment worse. Poor bastard...

Masking her thoughts with a pleasantly neutral expression in eyes and tone she proferred her hand with a slightly casual,

"Hello, Harry, long time no see!"

He had forgotten the warmth of her smile, as well as the strength of her handshake but both memories were solidly revived as they shook.

"Hello, Hope, welcome back. About twenty years since we last met, I make it."

The realisation that it was a shade under two decades had only hit him as they had been returning from the roof-top terrace and it was sobering, almost depressing. Where on earth had the years gone? Last time they had met Catherine had been thirteen, Graham about to turn ten and Ruth would have still been a university student, none of them even remotely aware of the disasters the future would hold, although the same would have been said of he and Hope, despite them both being in their thirties and far more worldly... He noted the wry acknowledgement of the passage of so much time in her eyes and immediately felt guilty as her smile faded a little and she sighed.

"Ah yes. The era of _perestroika_ and _glasnost_ and we were all going to be out of a job. Then look at what happened."

Hope had worked out the dispiriting number of years that had passed since they had last met on the long flight over but hearing the numbers spoken made her feel as unenthusiastic as he obviously did. Gazing at him, she thought she saw a glint of another pain in the dark eyes as she spoke and immediately assumed she had already put her foot in it (the Russian connection again?) but, whatever it was, it was gone as soon as it appeared and he flashed her another hollow smile, accompanied by a slightly sardonic,

"Indeed. The world was going to be peaceful and we were all going to live happily ever after. For the dreamers, perhaps. The likes of you and I knew better than that." He gestured at the rest of the small group. "I see you've met Dimitri Levendis and Waleed Yassine already. This is Erin Watts, my Section Chief. Erin, this is Dr Hope Johnson, formerly China Section Head for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, later Head of counter-espionage for the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, now Deputy Head of the National Security Council and a senior policy advisor to the Australian government and here to pick our brains for the next three months in preparation for the new, multi-national counter-terrorism focus group that is being set up."

_The brunette was Harry's Section Chief? Looking like that she'd hardly blend into the crowd..._ The disbelief died as Hope suddenly remembered her own successor, Ilian Grant, who was generally impeccably glamorous herself, capable of rivalling the average movie star but equally of looking like a washed-out suburban housewife depending on what was required. Ilian had always cheerfully maintained that glamour was an advantage in their game because everyone assumed she was a ditzy piece so no-one _ever _thought she would be a spy... The two women shook hands as the visitor suddenly grinned with a hint of devilry in her eyes as she responded to the introduction cheerfully,

"It's not just your brains I'll be picking, Harry, I'll be buzzing around like a blow-fly annoying the hell out of the JTAC, Six and GCHQ as well, if that's any help!"

Another hollow smile preceeded his mildly facetious and only slightly conspiratorial response.

"Well, feel free to annoy them a little more than you need to, strictly on our behalf!" With that, he ushered her towards his office and they got down to business.

Hope fitted in surprisingly well, despite Harry's initial misgivings. Set up at a work station on the main floor she got to know everyone quickly and, as was her wont, melded into the background, spending more of her time working with those on the main floor than with Harry when she wasn't off looking at the other sections or, as promised, annoying the sister organisations. An early, quiet chat with Erin, Dimitri and Calum, the senior techie, had filled her in on the outlines of the horror couple of years Harry had had:

his previous section chief going bad in a spectacular manner (the Chinese connection – interestingly, she had been aware that Beijing had been overly excited about something a year or so back but then it had gone very quiet) leading to his suicide and the subsequent enquiry into Harry's apparent treason to protect his senior analyst (Ruth) from the section chief's machinations;

his tortured relationship with the analyst – not that any of them knew _any_ details on that front – and how he had tried to shield her from the disaster that was unleashed, while the enquiry was still going on, by the Russians;

a bunch of former KGB operatives fronted by a woman who was an asset gone wrong of Harry's from the 1980s (Hope blinked at that – her gut feeling had been right, then) who had cost Section D the life of their young techie, whom they had murdered in cold blood and whom the team on the Grid had loved, as well as several others including two of their own country-men and a long-time friend of Harry's, a CIA agent turned Deputy Director with whom he had worked in the 1980s (oh, _shit,_ now she remembered his name: Jim. Jim Coaver, that rather lovely, polite and utterly ruthless young man with the very dry sense of humour who had been working with Harry in Berlin in 1989 and with whom she had enjoyed the briefest of flirtations at the time);

and the finally desolate end on the coast with the Russian woman dead by her husband's hand and Ruth dying in Harry's arms after being stabbed while trying to stop the former asset's son from taking out Harry in some sort of twisted, senseless revenge.

_Christ, talk about a Greek tragedy..._ whirling images of the group arriving to find the _pieta_-like tableau of an almost lifeless Ruth in Harry's arms as she bled out, irretrievably, internally, leaving no hope of resuscitation, followed by carloads of FSB operatives arriving to remove their colleagues at gun-point and finally, far too late, the arrival of the air ambulance when the woman was already cold spun in Hope's mind as the trio talked. That certainly explained the grief and the destruction of his soul and left her quietly gutted – she knew all too well how it felt to lose a loved one as a result of your own actions. The young ones clearly had an idea, but no real experience, of the depth of what he was going through but she most certainly did and would tread very carefully around those subjects, unless and until he brought them up himself. And she understood perfectly why, for the rest of her time with them, he never did emerge from full mourning, although occasionally and increasingly, on his better days, the ties were grey, not black.

For his part, over the days and weeks that followed, Harry found Hope to be oddly comforting. Quiet, efficient, still with the ability to melt into the surroundings and still with a brain like a steel trap, she nonetheless exuded peacefulness and tranquillity, and had a well-developed, if slightly anarchic, sense of humour despite the ancient anguish in her eyes which was so clearly now part of her soul. She didn't intrude, or ask those questions he dreaded, although he assumed that she had found out about the events of the past few years; strangely, he didn't find that prospect at all difficult to swallow. Instead, he appreciated her calming presence on both him, especially over the mid-morning coffees the pair took to sharing in his office, and the rest of the crew. Sometimes they would talk, other times it was mostly silence but even that didn't appear to faze her much: it would seem she knew the healing power of quiet and it was oil on the unpredictable, ever-changing and uncomfortable water of his heart.

Hope realised early on that she still genuinely liked the man, especially his ascerbic, very funny, observations on politicians and the public service, rare though those observations were, and his ill-concealed affection for his team. She observed him as closely, but probably with more comprehension, as his Section Chief did, quietly marvelling as he negotiated the dramas and boredom of day to day life in the Service with apparent equanimity, totally subsuming his own despair to the needs of the greater good and, she deduced shrewdly, actually deriving him some form of pleasure in a job well done, even if he didn't consciously recognise it himself. All of which meant that, despite everything he had been through and what she suspected he himself thought, locked away behind that emotionless barricade, he hadn't lost the ability to care. Which was a good sign.

She spent a week with GCHQ in Cheltenham late in October and the crew, along with their leader, realised they missed her. Harry could feel his mood descending again, starting the weekend before she was away, the faint cheer remaining to him gone completely by Monday afternon, while Erin and the rest of that inner circle could actually see it and when Waleed commented quietly on the return to despondency while waiting for Harry to arrive for the morning briefing they all recognised just how different the atmosphere had become over the previous few weeks. As a result, when Hope returned the following Monday, profoundly glad to be away from the weird world of the mathematical geeks, she was gratified by their warm welcome, acknowledging silently that walking back on to the Grid was almost like coming home. Reinforcing that feeling, the staff had used the excuse to lay on morning tea then, to her great surprise, Harry took her out for an impromptu lunch. Although they had been known to share a table in the staff cafeteria sometimes, more often than not it was in the company of one or another of the others so he was as surprised as she was when the idea popped into his head during the tea break but, if he was being honest with himself, he had missed their coffee interludes and the conversations (or non-conversations) that went with them and he just wanted a chance to catch up with her on their own, away from the noise of the Grid.

The result was a fairly quiet but companionable meal which extended into a walk that was almost as quiet. Both found the experience comforting – he, because (suspecting there was something buried in her past that made her so empathic without pitying him) she was about the only person apart from his daughter or Malcolm that he could stand to be around for any length of time and she because he, apart from having gone through a nightmare similar to her own (despite him not knowing it, although she suspected he suspected something of the sort), seemed to be one of the few people she had met who was content to let her be herself, complete with the powerful need for silence that was so much a part of her. The peace they found during this lunch was so soothing that they repeated the meal a few days later and it then became a bit of a habit, at least twice a week, during her remaining time with them, albeit with the self-imposed rule that, if they were going to talk at all, they could do so about anything _except_ work. These were their moments to forget who they were, what they did and the price they had paid and continued to pay and they were quite content to abide by their agreement.

The peace and quiet after that first meal didn't last long. Towards the end of that week they found themselves in the middle of a crisis involving Uigher Islamists intent on taking out the government during the visit of a high-ranking Chinese delegation to a sitting at Westminster in an attempt to bring global attention to their plight; thirty six very long hours later they had been foiled and the team at Thames House could catch up on some sleep. Until a day later when a bomb threat by a previously unidentified Scottish Nationalist splinter group had them all back on high alert. By early Tuesday morning that had been dealt with as well so Harry sent them home again while he retired to his office to deal with the paperwork.

Hope joined him a few minutes later, once the others had started to leave, and flopped down on the sofa. She had been with them through the lot, assisting where she could, particularly with the Uighers (she spoke enough of the language and had a far better grasp of their issues and likely behaviours than anyone else they could easily or quickly get at and had ended up at the forefront of the final hostage negotiations as a result), and had stayed through the bomb threat at Harry's request – he found having her around as a sounding board useful. Now, she was every bit as weary as they were but instead of going home when they did she was a little concerned about Harry so decided to stay a while longer. He had been fine during the earlier crisis but the second one, although smaller, following so closely on the first had been met with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm on his part, for all that he had remained completely professional throughout. _It was, _she thought, _as though it had been the second-last straw on that particular camel's back and the struggle to not break was getting impossible for him to maintain..._

He was leaning back in his chair, eyes closed, when she quietly knocked and walked in. Observing him silently for a moment, she realised he looked haggard, with noticeable darkness under his eyes, stubble shadowing his jaw, tie askew and his shirt crumpled, but he managed a tired smile when he heard her sit down, opening his eyes to reveal dark wells of exhaustion and still the endless pain. Some words from a song that had climbed the charts back home just before she had left to come over here echoed in her mind as she contemplated him: the lyrics had resonated with her on many levels; now, she realised just how well the main hook also fitted her old sparring partner...

_These battle scars don't look like they're fading_

_ Don't look like they're ever going away_

_ They ain't never gonna change_

_ These battle..._

She didn't realise she looked almost as tired as he did, her shirt and linen skirt equally as crumpled and her own eyes sunk half-way into her skull under a top-knot that had long-since half come apart, leaving whisps of dark or silver hair starting to curl around her face and down the nape of her neck; they gazed at each other, silent, for a minute or so, while they processed the events of the previous few days. Eventually she gave him a quiet smile in return and said,

"That's a few days we can live without repeating."

He nodded and closed his eyes for a few seconds, his words an uncanny echo of the song.

"We wish. No chance of it happening, though. It never ends, this war of ours." His voice was as hollow as his eyes and creaked with tiredness.

"You're not going home?"

He sighed at her question, wishing the answer could be something different.

"No, not yet. I'd better get a summary to the powers-that-be first."

There was something in his tone that continued to give her pause and she suddenly wondered if he had seen someone about dealing with the very natural depression that would have reared its head after his personal _annus horribilis_; she assumed so, he wasn't stupid, _but_... It was his disconnectedness over the past day that was worrying her, evident in a flatness in his voice this afternoon; although the floor of the Grid wasn't entirely deserted, the immediate area around his fishbowl office was so she thought she might stay around for a trifle longer to see if she could stop his retreat even a little.

"I can stay and help, if you want," she offered casually. "Even if it's just doing the typing while you loll back in your seat and dictate. I haven't got anywhere in particular that I have to race off to."

_At least he didn't tell her to go._ He nodded assent and closed his eyes again, bone-weary and fed up. Early retirement was looking more attractive with every passing day but what the hell would he do with his time? Like her, he also didn't have anywhere , anyone or anything that would demand his attention and he didn't want to risk facing the emptiness alone. Not yet.

The fact that he didn't come back with one of his normal ripostes gently stirring her about her after-hours dedication to the gym or her attraction to martial arts training studios also worried her. He really didn't seem to be interested in anything today. Letting the silence continue for a couple of heart-beats she finally asked, carefully,

"Is everything alright, Harry?"

Hope's soft contralto was a welcome break to the direction his thoughts were taking (_he should have been retired already. To that cottage in Suffolk. With Ruth._). He forced his eyes open again to return to the present – he was finding himself living more and more either in the past or in a future which would never happen now and it was a habit he was battling to stop – and shook his head, suddenly deciding to tell the truth for once. He had worked out enough of this woman by now to know that she wouldn't be shocked, wouldn't judge and wouldn't tell.

"No, not really. At times like this I keep asking myself why we keep fighting. Sometimes it would be easier to just give up, wouldn't it? Let the world descend into anarchy."

_Oh, that wasn't good. _She wasn't shocked by his words but was a little surprised that he had so freely admitted to it, although perhaps that was a good sign. Or perhaps not. His dark gaze was very direct and slightly challenging but she replied calmly, green eyes equally direct, although accepting, not combative.

"You know that's not true, otherwise you would have been out of here years ago, as would I. We keep fighting because the other option – _not_ fighting – would be so much worse and totally unacceptable to our own personal beliefs." As she spoke the challenge in his eyes died as quickly as it had flared, replaced by a rueful recognition of the truth he was hearing. _Regnum-bloody-defende. That one and only rule that he – they – had lived by for so long and that still held him to ransom. _Subliminally picking up on his thought she sighed and admitted, "Maybe some of us have been fighting for too long, though." She had said her bit; it was time to change the subject a little to something a little happier. "That's a good team you've got there, by the way. Very impressive, you should be proud of them."

He could tell she meant it and the ghost of a smile flickered across his face.

"I know. And I am."

Relaxing a little – she hadn't even realised she had been tense until now – Hope went on with a casual observation that sent everything to hell in the space of a few words.

"They love you to death, you know, and would do absolutely anything for you. Which is very special."

Intense anguish suddenly flashed across his face and his eyes filled. Appalled and not knowing what she had said, she was out of her seat and crouching by his chair in an instant, hand on his arm and looking up with her own eyes filled with compassion while her voice reflected her desperate incomprehension.

"Shit, Harry, I'm sorry. Whatever I said, I'm sorry."

Blinking the tears away he shook his head and rested his own hand on hers for a moment, every bit as surprised by the reaction – an agony as sharp as a sword plunged into his gut – as she was. He had thought, or at least hoped, that his grief was ossifying into something more managable but yet again it seemed he was wrong... Swallowing as he fought to retain his composure and aware of her confused distress, he enunciated carefully, unable to keep all of the bitter self-loathing out of his voice,

"It's not you, it's me. If there's one thing I don't expect or deserve, it's their love or their loyalty." He stood up and pulled her to her feet. "Come on. I want to show you something." They left his office and headed through the labyrinth of corridors and stairs, ending up, she thought, somewhere towards the centre and near the basement. He let them through the door and ushered her forward, to the glass wall, running with slow droplets of water like an endless flow of tears and etched with names, too many names. "You know what this is?"

"Yes," she whispered, her heart contracting and suddently unable to breath properly. "We've got one of our own." Her eyes tracked over all the names of those who had died on operations, going back decades, and realised that, like her at the memorial at home, he would have known far too many of them. And presumably, like her, had sent more than enough of them, directly or indirectly, to their deaths. They stood, silent, locked together in despair, considering the toll that the job demanded of them while on the wall, in the soft, almost natural light, the tears ran and ran and ran. Unsurprisingly, she noticed that his attention had fixated on one name, the one that looked the newest.

"Is that Ruth?" Hearing that name spoken aloud by someone, after months of not hearing it at all, was almost shocking and caused him to look sideways at her, although he said nothing. She elaborated, "Erin and Dimitri filled me in, to an extent. After I asked them to, the day after I arrived and realised you and I had become two sides of the one coin."

Finally, after watching her steadily for a few moments while he dealt with the shock of the name he came to the conclusion that she was being nothing more than empathetic – there seemed to be no hidden agenda – so he nodded slowly, not immediately taking in the implications of her words.

"Yes." His voice was hardly even a whisper as he returned his attention to the terrible beauty of the wall. "Still the last on a list that contains too many names I'm responsible for putting there. All I can do now is try to keep any more of them from joining her. And what _is_ it all for, eventually? I really do have a hard time seeing the point any more, especially after days like the last few." His gaze started to roam over the names again, stopping when it came to W. Crombie. Brilliant, theatrical, life-loving Bill, his friend since their childhood in the school yard who had been like a surrogate brother back in the day when they had both been young, ridiculously keen recruits and who had also been the first of his fellow officers he had lost, in such a way that it had scarred the rest of his life. The name reminded him of something the man used to cheerfully quote when they were confronted by one tangled mess or another, something that he had come to realise was more and more apt to the world in which they were living. "There is a law in physics that more or less states that every system tends towards disorder or chaos." Although it had explained the never-ending battles at the time, after the past decade Harry was at the point of realising it had another implication and this time he voiced it. "We're fighting an immutable law of the universe here so what chance have we got?"

Hope begged to disagree with him on his taking up of the burden of complete responsibility for the deaths – despite her own similar experience she still believed in the existence of free will, after all, and _all_ of the people on these memorials had _chosen_ to take up their particular battle and sometimes actively gone to their deaths, whether with conscious deliberation or not – but now wasn't the time for a philosophical discussion and in any case she most certainly felt a strong kinship in the owning of the appropriate portion of the guilt relating to such losses. And she had more than a passing acquaintance with that particular law. Sighing, she too glanced up and back through the history of death displayed in front of them before she replied.

"The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which also says that inside a closed system everything runs out of energy, eventually, for what that's worth. Presumably that also applies to terrorist organisations." They thought about it for a moment before she continued quietly, returning to their earlier conversation in the office. "What's the other option, anyway? Do you really believe we should give up and let the other bastard win? That's not me and it's _definitely_ not you. Not when it comes to the type of 'other bastard' that we deal with." Sighing, she touched him on the arm and added, knowing it probably wouldn't help much because he had undoubtedly been clinging to the thought since that day on the Estuary and probably long before, "If that's not enough, at least try to think of the lives that have been saved, by you and all of them—" she waved a hand at the wall "—compared to what might have been, on days like we've just had."

They continued to stand in mournful silence for a little longer, overwhelmed by the enormity of what the weeping wall represented. On a whim, when he showed signs of remaining quietly lost and alone in his grief, she mused tonelessly, thinking it might help if he finally knew just how very well she understood where he was,

"Just so that you know, my husband's name is on the wall at home, only somewhat higher up the list. He's been there for a long time now."

'Battle Scars'. Written and performed by Guy Sebastian and Lupe Fiasco.


	3. Chapter 3

**Many thanks to all who are reading and particularly those who are reviewing. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.**

3\. **November 2012.**

The revelation was as unexpected as it was stunning. So stunning that it took a few seconds for the comment to sink in through Harry's despair. When it did, he blinked in disbelief and denial and finally turned to look at her, eyes wide and aware of a creeping shame. It felt like someone had knocked the breath out of him as he finally processed that she had, in fact, been _exactly_ where he was now. That must have been what she meant with the coin analogy. Shocked out of his semi-permanent fugue, he didn't know what to say – Christ, he hadn't even known she had ever been married – but, still staring at the wall and without giving him a chance to comment, she went on, sombre but oddly calm.

"We were both working for ASIS when we met and it was love at first sight, really, both of us in our mid-thirties and having spent years in the field, with not much chance to have a real life – I'd been in China under the cover of being a cultural attache for over a decade, he had been in various hot-spots throughout South-East Asia for the three years since he had left the SAS – then we met and bang!" She gave a quick, bleak smile, "Instantly smitten. Six months later we were engaged; six months after that, married. And four months after that he went back to East Timor on another black op, was caught by the Indonesian military and executed. He was not far short of his thirty-ninth birthday."

The horror implicit in her story was something of a wake-up call for Harry. He had been so locked in his own grief and despair for so long now that, despite having the evidence in front of him during almost his every waking hour, he had forgotten that every day, somewhere, someone else was experiencing exactly the same thing, in their own way and for them it was every bit as bad, as guilt inducing, as unendurable, as the loss of Ruth was for him. About the only other person whose presence could jolt him into a similar frame of mind was Ilya Gavrik, that complicated, self-contained former enemy with whom he now shared so much at so many levels and who was having the same battle to go on with living something approaching a normal life but was doing so as much for Sasha as for himself. Now here, standing next to him, was another example, but one which _had _been endured for – he didn't know how long, exactly, but it had to have been more than a decade. Exactly how, though, he couldn't begin to fathom.

Hope wasn't really seeing the glass wall of names in front of her but was staring through it, into the darkness of the past, the usual dim, semi-imagined images of dank, tropical scrub, torture and lonely death flickering faintly through her mind as she spoke and continuing afterwards, in the sharp, subsequent silence. For that moment she was alone again, as she had been that day so long ago when she had first felt a ripple of wrongness vibrate through her psyche, warning her that her world had changed, permanently. She had, in a way, forgotten the man standing next to her until she felt him take her hand in his and came back to the present, vaguely aware of a tremor in his touch but not turning to see the anguish in his face. She didn't need to: it was there in his voice when he finally spoke with an unexpected question.

"What was his name?"

_That was sweet of him_, she thought. He obviously knew, for the worst of reasons now, how important it was that names were both remembered and acknowledged; thought about but also, crucially, spoken. That way, the lost still existed at some level. Finally fully returning to the here and now she turned her eyes to his, noting in them an almost inchoate distress that mirrored what her own had been.

"Wynne. Wynne Sharrug."

_An unusual name – rather old English,_ he registered absently but the thought was overwhelmed by another, more urgent need. One he knew was pointless but perhaps her answer would be different. They gazed at each other for another long moment before he asked, desperate, almost pleading, but without hope, voice low and a little harsh,

"Does it ever get any better?"

_Ah, that question. All too easily answered with a glib platitude that hindered more than it helped. _Squeezing his hand she shook her head, slowly. She wouldn't offer him the platitude – lie to him about being able to survive unscathed the violent loss of a deep love – she liked him too much and he was worthy of more than that. He must know the truth anyway but perhaps he needed to hear it from someone else.

"No, not really. You never get over it. You just get used to it. Then you absorb it and it becomes part of your soul. And you go on, because there _is_ no real, worth-while, alternative." She turned her eyes back to the endlessly, silently suppurating wall while her voice, soft and supple as the water, continued on with words that she had rarely spoken before. "I thought about walking away from everything but that would have achieved nothing for me and it certainly wouldn't have brought him back. So I did what you're doing: returned to the thick of it and continued carrying on the fight, in his memory and that of all the rest of them as well as trying to prevent any more pointless bloody deaths. That's why I took the chance to transfer over to ASIO for those years, before Ilian took over, and why I'm still here, doing my part, even though I'm no longer in the front line because _that _I couldn't take any more." The words of the song which had arrived from her subconscious earlier came back to her, strangely prescient about the events that had happened to both of them.

_It shouldn't have happened but you let it._

_ Now you're down on the ground screaming 'medic';_

_ the only thing that comes is the post-traumatic stresses._

_ Shields, body armours and vests don't properly work,_

_ that's why you're in a locker full of hurt._

_ The enemy within and all the fire's from your friends._

_ The best medicine's to probably just let it win._

_ I wish I couldn't feel, I wish I couldn't love._

_ I wish that I could stop 'cause it hurts so much..._

_ I wish you weren't the best, the best I ever had._

_ I wish that the good outweighed the bad 'cause it'll never be over..._

Unaware of the tune chasing itself through her mind, Harry's only thought once she stopped speaking was a staggered _Jesus Christ_. Although still struggling to comprehend her revelation it was, nonetheless, an explanation of something he had felt, although never articulated, from that first greeting on the floor of the Grid. _No wonder they had recognised something in each other that day back in September.._. Unable to think of anything to say that wouldn't sound trite, infinitely grateful for her honesty and thankful for her blunt delivery of some perspective, he merely gave the smallest of nods before, like Hope, returning his attention to the terrible beauty of the monument. Still holding hands, they continued to stand, silent, before that glassy vale of tears until sheer exhaustion sent them back to write the most succinct of reports and then head to their respective homes.

In the weeks that remained of her visit they became closer. Coffee breaks were more valued and more frequent; even when coffee wasn't involved, Harry would find himself perched on her desk or pulling a chair over to join her as they talked about nothing much or Hope would drift into his office (always politely knocking first), again to talk about nothing much or, as often, to just sit in comfortable silence, away fom the noise out on the main floor, while he worked and she cogitated on what her own findings and recommendations would be. The roof became an impromtu meeting point as well, usually unplanned: one or the other would head up for fresh air and quiet and almost inevitably find the other one was already there so they would end up leaning on the balcony and taking in the view either in silence or, at best, desultory conversation.

Lunches were a more regular occurrence and even spilled over into the weekends when she would arrive and haul him away from his desk for the afternoon. Occasionally, they would walk afterwards, hand in hand or arm in arm, as friends. When he was in the mood she would encourage him to talk, in the unthreatening surroundings of those perambulations, initially about Jim and then Ruth – those two, the one amongst his oldest friends and representing his past and the other whom he had loved so long and had represented his future, their deaths separated by all of twenty six hours and from the same root cause, would be forever inextricably linked in Harry's mind – and what had happened. He had forgotten that she had met Jim in Berlin; when she gently reminded him all the gut-wrenching despair of that loss bubbled up for the first time since he had died and they had both wept, quietly, for the loss of another good man. Later, gradually, she expanded the subject to include the others he had lost over the years – quietly chilled at how very many there had been in the years since 9/11 – guessing correctly that he had never had much of a chance to do that, either, with someone he knew not only wouldn't judge but actually understood it all. When Harry wasn't in the mood she would leave him alone: she seemed to have an almost psychic ability to know when he _didn't_ need to either talk or have company at all and acted accordingly.

He returned the favour to her without knowing it, listening intently on the occasions she spoke about some of her own shadows, although she kept the details of Wynne's demise to herself for the moment. Having by now heard about what had happened to his friend in Ireland along with something of the almost unimaginable dreadfulness associated with the deaths of two of his officers – a young woman called Helen and an experienced ex-Six operative named Zafar – she thought the events in East Timor might be too close to home right now and risk tipping him off the tentative balance that he was slowly regaining.

As the days turned to weeks a couple of simple outward signs of his slow, sputtering recovery that she noticed and quietly gave thanks for were that grey ties became more common than black ones and that his smiles were, occasionally, touching his eyes. On top of that, even more rarely, they braved venturing with some vigour into the extremely dangerous waters of discussing international cricket and rugby matches between their respective countries, another indication that he was starting to regain some interest in every-day life. There was even, once or twice towards the end, the sound of gales of laughter coming from his office as her subversive sense of humour eventually re-awakened his own. Erin, Dimitri and Calum were incredulous the first time they heard that while Waleed was slightly shocked – he didn't think he had ever heard Harry genuinely laughing, uproariously, as opposed to the polite version - and all breathed a fervent prayer that he might, finally, be coming back to them.

Sooner rather than later the day of Hope's departure finally dawned. For want of anything else to do and because Erin and Waleed had asked her to she came into the Grid to bid everyone goodbye and fill in the last few hours before her flight. Harry wasn't there when she first arrived, being at a meeting at the Home Office, but returned in time for the morning tea was laid on and, before she knew it, it was time to go. Despite her strenuous objections to wasting his time on something so frivolous Harry insisted on taking her to Heathrow but, once there, she wouldn't let him come in – there wasn't any point as she was going to have to go almost straight through – so instead they parked outside Departures and spent a few minutes talking. One of the traffic wardens made the mistake of knocking on the driver's window after a couple of minutes, telling them to move; Harry waved his ID at the man and told him to go away. The ID and the tone of voice did the trick and the man backed off but it was only a couple of minutes more before they got out anyway and retrieved her bag from the back. Heart sinking to his boots for reasons he couldn't – perhaps wouldn't – recognise he surprised her with an extended hug and a light kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you, Hope. For everything. Stay in touch."

She looked at him steadily, something of a sense of unease settling on her. Despite all those good signs she was well aware that he was still so bloody fragile...

"I will." She hugged him back and returned the kiss. "I'll be back for the ultra hush-hush talk-fest in February anyway so we can catch up then." She suddenly scowled at him in mock censure, waving her finger at him in the hope that a little mild humour might deflect him frow what she feared was the start of another downward trajectory. "In the meantime, don't forget to send me some wedding photos!"

He nodded and smiled, albeit slightly desperately; cupping his face in her hands she said, very quietly and much more seriously,

"Things will improve, Harry. It doesn't feel like it now but it will. Believe me."

_At least she hadn't said that things would get better, only that they would improve. _The thought was barely formulated when, with another hug, she was gone, the touch of her hands on his face cooling too rapidly. And he had nothing left but to return to the office, alone. Again.

_Must go on._

'Battle Scars'. Written and performed by Guy Sebastian and Lupe Fiasco.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: thanks again to all my readers and reviewers, I've been slightly overwhelmed by the response! This one is going up a little early due to Easter. I wish everyone a good break!**

4\. **December 2012**

Hope had, technically although not in reality, been back home for nearly two weeks when she found the email from Erin in her Inbox when she arrived at work on Monday morning.

_Hi Hope. We don't want to be impertinent but we're worried about Harry. He's fading away from us again and we were wondering if you've been keeping in touch with him? If not, can you send him something? We think it might help – he was better while you were here. If you have been in touch then I guess we will just have to go back to nursing him and try to find out what else it might be. Sorry to trouble you and thanks. Erin, Dee, Cal and Waleed._

Her heart sank as a quick burst of guilt flared and died. She had sent Harry a quick text when she got home and forwarded a few jokes and two-line messages through the email over the days since but had otherwise been so busy, reporting on her findings to the government and the intelligence community as well as the other members of the multinational task force – in fact she had just got home late last night after over a week spent briefing her counterparts in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and, very much on the quiet, China – that she hadn't got around to sending anything of any substance. Yet she had _known_, at the airport, that he was still incredibly fragile and had suffered a very uneasy flight back as a result, unable to shift the image of the total desolation that had been in his eyes as they had finally parted. It seemed that she had made the mistake of assuming that he was better than he was. The lack of contact hadn't been intentional and his depression wasn't her responsibility but he had, unwittingly, done her a lot of good and she felt she owed him a little, if only for that... _Shit!_

Sending a quick acknowledgment to the younger woman, she put everything else aside and finally wrote him a long, chatty email, deliberately keeping the tone light while apologising for being slack, passing on some scurrilous gossip about a mutual acquaintance that should be guaranteed to at least make him smile and finishing with a reminder that she was expecting wedding photos after next weekend. Hitting the _Send_ button she sat back and scrubbed at her face, hoping that it wasn't all too late and that the contact would do some good.

Erin had sent the email late on Friday evening after a long day of politicking with Harry at Whitehall and Vauxhall Cross and after having been getting her courage up to do so for the previous week. Her boss had taken an inordinately long time to return to the office the day Hope had left; when he did, he looked like he had been hit by a metaphorical truck, wan, listless and far too quiet, and had gone down-hill rapidly in the time since, returning to his state of emotionless automata surrounded by an impregnable wall of self-defence. Even the black ties started to become more common again, although not quite as dominant as they had been. Unsure of the response to what was an unusually personal request to someone she didn't really know on behalf of someone else who didn't know she was doing it, Erin had sent the email deliberately late, well aware that it was the weekend already on the other side of the world and therefore giving her a couple of days to prepare for whatever response she might get from the older woman; she just hoped her instincts on that front were right. Then yet another crisis had blown up – a bunch of disaffected youths with a home-made bomb only this time they were fascist skin-heads whose lack of skill reflected their lack of originality – and kept them all busy until Sunday, so she didn't have time to wonder whether she had done the right thing or not.

As usual, Harry had sent them home once it was all over and then spent Sunday evening writing reports and tidying up paperwork. There was no reason for him to rush home. He preferred being here with his memories and the fantasy that Ruth might bowl in at any moment, or Hope, bringing with her that intangible air of peace and serenity. Polar opposites, that pair. Both brilliant, in completely different ways; one all nervous energy, the other stillness incarnate. He sorely missed having someone he could talk to, about anything, everything or nothing, in a way that he had never been able to do with anyone – and that included Ruth – before and wondered what she was doing, right now, in the too-bright summer of the other side of the world, and what Ruth would have made of her. He had a funny feeling they would have liked each other and would probably have delighted in ganging up on him to take the piss when he needed it, something he was willing to concede these days that he probably required more often he had ever received.

Realising he had let his mind wander yet again he pushed the keyboard away and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes for a few moments as weariness overwhelmed his deeply rooted sense of duty. It was always the way on these late nights, alone in his glass fishbowl. With nothing to distract him his mind would head in the entirely predictable direction of what his future might have been, had he been less exhausted and faster off the mark that day, or had Ruth _listened_ to him when he warned her... then he would consciously divert the path he was taking by doing or thinking about something different. It didn't always work – like a tongue prodding a sore tooth he would end up back at his starting point sooner or later – but he was finding it a little easier with the passage of time.

The best diversion was also the most surprising: when Ilya Gavrik was in town he knew, no matter what the hour of the night, that he could ring or text his former foe and they would meet up somewhere to drown their sorrows. These days, Ilya slept as little and as poorly as he himself did and so was always happy to oblige; occasionally, he would be the one making the phone call and Harry was content to return the favour. However, despite the increasing frequency of his visits due to the expansion of his business – the only other beneficiary of his insomnia – Ilya Andreivitch wasn't in town all that often so Harry would have to find something else to use and that included occasionally thinking about Hope's story and how on earth she had survived it for so long.

Equally cogent was how Ilya was surviving revelations that must have almost destroyed him, would have destroyed a weaker man. At this stage, for himself he couldn't see further ahead into his future, _sans _Ruth, than the next month, let alone years hence and he knew the Russian wasn't even capable of that, living entirely from one day to the next, buried either in the minutiae of his business or, significantly harder, dealing with Sasha's painfully slow recovery in the high security psychiatric facility where he was serving his sentence for the murder of Anatoly Arkanov. Neither he nor Ilya could even begin to imagine how or where they would be in a decade or more but now there was Hope, the living proof that it _was_ possible to endure, to still make something worthwhile of your life when you thought it had finished.

The very strangeness of the friendship with Ilya was proving to be one of its greatest strengths, the pair of them somehow glued together by, yet increasingly stronger than, the horror of their shared history and all entirely by choice. Harry had been at Catherine and Aron's place last weekend for one final discussion on wedding duties when he had heard something that perhaps reflected on the friendship and on this unfamiliar new world of more visible, if not quite unrepressed, emotion in which he found himself these days.

Aron, a rangy New Zealander who was Catherine's cameraman and cinematographer as well as her fiance, was also an obsessive surfer and was, to his future father-in-law's silent, thankful relief, slowly but surely refocussing Catherine's passionate interest away from the dangers of religious and political conflict to the equally, or maybe even more, urgent but less well-covered issue of the looming ecological collapse of the world's oceans, an event which would have implications that would dwarf any human politics. On this day he had been playing a remastered version of what was apparently a classic surf movie from forty years before on their large new television, the soundtrack forming a quiet backdrop to their conversation. At one point Aron had disappeared to take a phone call and Catherine had gone out to the kitchen to make afternoon tea, leaving her father alone with only the dream-like imagery of the sort of pristine water and beaches that rarely existed any more and its accompanying music for company. The words he heard, in front of a chiming guitar, had rung achingly true at points for the lessons he had so painfully learned over the past few years.

_There's no formula for happiness that's guaranteed to work._

_ It all depends on how you treat your friends and how much you've been hurt..._

_ ...no lover's ever been in love and not been hurt._

_ No dreamer has ever dreamed and seen it all come true._

_ In the end you find the things that count are up to me and you_

_but it's a start when you open up your heart._

_Give your love to others, they become your brothers._

_Open up your heart, come on make a start._

_ Try not to hide what you feel inside, just open up your heart._

Well, he had opened up his heart and look at where it had lead but by the same token he had lived his entire life before that hiding everything that he felt and look at how _that _had ended up. At least, before Sasha – _no, that wasn't fair, it was Elena _– had destroyed it all, his small attempts at reversing that habit of a lifetime had been leading in the right direction with Ruth. Certainly the risk he had taken in spilling far more than he had ever intended to his daughter in the weeks following Ruth's death had paid off in spades – they were now closer than they had been at any time since she had been small – and continued to do so. Then, after some of the discussions he had over the past months with Hope, deeper in many ways than any he had even begun to attempt with Ruth, he had felt something of a kindred spirit in her on the risks and benefits of opening up to others and had finally decided he might as well do his best to continue on that new, unfamiliar and uncomfortable course and that included taking a firmer grasp on the friendship with Ilya. God knows _they_ bothneeded someone to talk to... The lyrics to this unknown song had seemed to be a verbal incarnation of that notion.

Tonight, though, drifting between Ruth and Hope in his tiredness, he wondered whether he had actually achieved anything or not and why he couldn't completely drag his thoughts away from either of them: one was never coming back, after all, and he had hardly heard anything from the other since she had returned home, whatever that might signify. Presumably he had read more amity into those weeks of friendly discussions and calm silences than actually existed. _That wasn't fair either – she had told him before she left that her feet were unlikely to hit the ground for her first couple of weeks home and she __**had**__ been in touch occasionally from what looked like the length and breadth of the eastern hemisphere..._ His email chimed gently and he dragged his attention back to the computer from where it had been roving far, far beyond the screened windows. _Bloody hell, the woman really must be psychic_.

He could feel Hope's tranquillity oozing out of the page as he read her missive and his spirits lifted, helped in no small part by the by the gossip, which was both slightly scandalous and funny enough to make him laugh for the first time since she had left. He hadn't realised until then that he had slipped back into the depression quite so far or so fast, although he had acknowledged that his sleep had gone back to being more broken over the past weeks and both his mileage walked in the dark and whisky consumption had shot up as the pain had taken over again. He also hadn't told anyone about his meltdown on the way back from Heathrow that day, when he had had to find somewhere to pull over because he could no longer see the traffic through the tears and had nearly cleaned up a motor bike as a result. That had led to spending the next hour allowing the tears flow while being wracked by sobs, resulting in a filthy headache that ensured he went home to raid the medicine cabinet for non-alcoholic pain-killers before returning to the Grid feeling like a train wreck.

He hadn't had a jag like that in the entire time that Hope had been there and they had been becoming more infrequent even before that, the last one of such intensity being when he had last visited Ruth's grave. He wasn't even completely sure what had set the new one off, blaming it initially on yet another song on the radio – he had been channel surfing, unable to listen to the endless brainless twittering from gormless radio presenters that seemed to sustain most of the populace – that had eerily described exactly the mess of his inner psyche...

_Now the wind has lost my sail._

_ Now the scent has left my trail._

_ Who will find me, take care and side with me?_

_ Guide me back safely to my home, where I belong, once more?_

_ Where is my star in heaven's bough?_

_ Where is my strength, I need it now._

_ Who can save me, lead me to my destiny?_

_ Guide me back safely to my home, where I belong, once more?_

_ Who will find me, take care and side with me?_

_ Guide me back safely to my home, where I belong, once more?_

_ How can I go on?_

_ How can I go on this way?_

...but eventually admitting that it was probably no more than the realistion that there would no longer be any distraction to his brooding.

Now, he felt insensibly cheered by the sight of a simple email. There _was_ someone out there who not only knew exactly what he was going through but, apparently, actually cared about the effect it was having on him. He was prettty certain that almost everyone else (excepting, to be fair, his immediate team and the Home Secretary, who had also been surprisingly protective of him while they were untangling the aftermath of that nightmare day) probably thought he had deserved everything he got. For himself, he wasn't so sure that they weren't right.

Two minutes after hitting Send, Hope's inbox chirped. She dragged her own eyes away from the view of a city and lake already simmering under the ferocious heat and bronze skies of an early morning that was dominated by bush fires, the view she hadn't been seeing, thinking about a red-walled office in London instead, and saw who it was from. _What the hell are you doing at your computer at (_she checked her watch) _9.15 on a Sunday night, Harry?_

She read his response, laughed, and emailed the question back to him. He explained straight away; they continued to bat emails backwards and forwards for the next half an hour until she had to go to a meeting and told him to go home. Feeling strangely light, he finally followed her advice twenty minutes later.

Erin emailed Hope when she returned to the office on Tuesday. _I don't know what you did but it's worked wonders. He's stopped fading. Thanks from all of us. EDCW._

Once proper communication had been re-established, Hope and Harry continued to play email and text ping-pong at least once but more often several times a day. In due course some wedding photos turned up: looking at him appearing so happy with his daughter and, to her quiet pleasure and delight for him, his son, made her smile gently and hope he was coming through the other side of the dark valley.

Christmas came and went; to her immense surprise he rang her on the day, briefly, just to say hello because he knew she was having a quiet one on her own before heading up to the big smoke to catch up with her extended family, including her mother-in-law and Wynne himself, once the Christmas traffic had died down a little, so he thought he'd call her before heading off to lunch with some friends and catching up with Graham afterwards. Although it was nothing deeper than polite chit-chat she appreciated the thought – that he had bothered at all – and gained some fond pleasure from the call, as did he, leaving them both more cheerful than they might otherwise have been as they went off to their respective familial duties.

The new year rolled around quickly and soon it was time for Hope to begin planning her packing to head over to the intelligence congress – another part of the international focus group – being held outside London. She was dreading the flight but looking forward to catching up with Harry again, even if she would have former colleagues from both ASIO and ASIS in tow and he was likely to be part of a group from Five, Six and GCHQ. Harry was just looking forward to the chance to catch up again and had no intention of letting anyone get in the way for at least one morning coffee. He was still having his moments but they were getting less frequent and didn't last as long. The ties were mostly grey now, although black still made an appearance on his bad days, and he had surprised himself by graduating to lavendar or pale blue occasionally. Charcoal grey suits were reappearing from the back of his wardrobe to replace the inky black that had been unvarying since the Estuary. None of it was conscious but he noticed it happening anyway, as did Erin and the Home Secretary, with both being quietly hopeful as a result. And he noticed that the pain was slowly being absorbed and the memories of Ruth were no longer uniformly accompanied by agony but some of them were actually gentle and warm and loving, leaving him so glad, now, that he had known and loved her, despite everything that had, and hadn't, happened.

_Will go on._

1\. 'Open Up Your Heart'. Written and performed by G Wayne Thomas from the movie "Morning of the Earth".

2\. 'Guide Me Home.' Written by Freddy Mercury and Mike Moran, performed by Freddy Mercury and Montserrat Caballe.


	5. Chapter 5

**Again, my thanks to everyone who is reading and particularly those taking the time to review.**

5\. **February 2013 – 1 – Norfolk – Conference**

The temperature had topped 42°C in Canberra the day before she left and it was already up to 32°C when she and the others boarded their 8.00am flight to Sydney to connect with QF1 to London. Conversely, it was 5°C when they arrived at Heathrow at 6.00am on the Sunday morning. Picking up their hire car, she and her colleagues headed off in the early-morning dark, struggling against jet-lag, cold and the dimness of a late winter morning as they headed towards the conference venue, which was some miles away to the north-east, at a carefully chosen isolated, luxurious and highly secure former stately home in Norfolk.

By the time the group arrived it was late-morning and not noticeably warmer; after booking in, the trio separated to their rooms. Hope's was small but very elegant and comfortable with an amazing view over the surrounding gardens and parkland to the valley beyond. Tempted though she was to have a lie down she knew it would be fatal to her chances of adapting to the change in time zones so instead had a long, very warm, shower, changed into something more suitable and went back down stairs. After looking over the conference venue she wandered in to where a casual lunch was taking place for arriving delegates and caught up with her fellow travellers as well as a few other Cousins who were floating around, looking slightly lost. There was no sign of Harry and she didn't really expect there to be – he hadn't said whether he was attending the whole thing or not and she knew, from experience, that the job would ultimately make the decision for him.

At a loose end after lunch and continuing to avoid the temptation of the bed in her room, she went for a walk around the grounds. It had warmed up at last – the temperature had just clawed its way into double-digits – and a weak sun was peering through the gauzy high haze so it wasn't entirely unpleasant to be out and about; to tell the truth she was enjoying the novelty of the chill after the almost-being-fried conditions prevalent during the preceding week-long heatwave back home. There was a stream at the bottom of the garden, she discovered, still rimed in ice in shady spots but tinkling prettily in its mossy green way, the clear water sliding smoothly over a base of rounded brown and grey stones. _The gardens would have been stunning in Spring_, she thought, they were just a bit bony now but the views were brilliant, especially from the terrace outside the conference room, which was where she ended up once back from her walk. She had picked up a coffee and was outside, fingers wrapped around the mug to keep warm as she admired the somewhat stark vista of pale pastels etched on grey and white, softened around the edges by a faint silver mist, and was contemplating an early night when she thought she heard a footstep somewhere behind her. Barely had the sound registered when she definitely heard a soft, deep voice in her ear.

"I was wondering where you were hiding."

She allowed herself a brief grin at the scenery before sighing mightily and announcing to the world in general, eyes still fixed on the horizon,

"You know, last time I was here the boys warned me that you had a habit of sneaking up behind them and scaring the daylights out of them. Now I know what they meant."

"Only when they're up to no good on the internet!" the voice protested mildly but she could hear the smile in it. Putting her coffee mug down on the balustrade, she finally turned to look at him and smiled back.

"Hello, Harry."

"Hello, Hope."

They moved into a hug which lasted longer than any of the ones at the airport had before separating with a kiss on each cheek to openly study each other. She thought he looked better: the first time she had seen him in civvies since Berlin, rugged up in jeans and a heavy jacket over a cream sweater, he actually had some colour in his face, compared to the grey man she had met last year, wasn't quite as gaunt as he had been and there was a spark of light in his dark eyes now, below the well of tears. He thought she looked tanned and relaxed and probably freezing, dressed like he was in jeans and a sweater but with a much lighter coat and straight from the middle of summer to the middle of winter. For all that she looked genuinely pleased to see him.

"How are you? You're looking well," she said quietly.

He shrugged and gave a small smile as he delivered a surprisingly honest appraisal.

"Progressing. Slowly and in fits and starts, but progressing. How about you? You look cold."

She laughed.

"I am! It was well over the old hundred when we left yesterday, you know, so it's a bit of a shock to the system to arrive to this. As for the rest, I'm progressing as well. As you do."

They gazed fondly at each other for a moment before a gentle gust of breeze made her involuntarily shiver. Noticing, he took her by the arm and said,

"Come on, let's go inside before you freeze solid."

Heading back inside they grabbed two fresh coffees and went in search of somewhere quiet to sit. There were several reception and sitting rooms on the ground floor and they eventually found one, at the far end of a corridor, that contained both very few other people and seats in front of an open fire. Hope made a bee-line for the latter, claiming the end of a two-seat sofa nearest the fire; Harry made himself comfortable next to her and the only others in the room, a pair with their heads together over a tablet on a small table in a far corner, glanced at them incuriously before returning their attention to each other and the computer. Harry and Hope did the same, spending the first half an hour bringing each other up to date before relaxing into periods of companionable silence interspersed with conversation. They only touched briefly on each other's grief – there would be plenty of time for that, if it was necessary – preferring to stay on more neutral topics. He was visibly relaxing in her quiet presence; she was visibly thawing out and slowly turning pink from the fire.

As the afternoon wore on more delegates arrived and the public rooms filled up, including the one they were in. Occasionally acquaintances of Harry's would bowl over to say hello and talk; mysteriously, after a few minutes all of them seemed to find something else to do and would disappear again. One of Hope's travelling companions found them, was introduced and stayed on to chat but also seemed to get the hint after ten minutes and disappeared as well. Hope worked out that Harry was being charming to them all but was also somehow giving them a subliminal message to push off and leave them alone, so the next time it happened she couldn't help grinning at him and saying,

"I don't know how you're doing it but you're bloody good at it." He looked at her ingenuously, all wide, dark tawny eyes; she just shook her head at him and added repressively, "Don't go trying to look innocent with me, it won't work." The innocence was replaced by dejection, equally feigned; suddenly winking at him she ordered, "And don't stop doing whatever you're doing, either, I'm really not in the mood to socialise tonight!"

At that his feigned dejection gave was to something that was genuinely crest-fallen as his only half-formed plan seemed to fall through and he couldn't hide the disappointment in his voice.

"Oh, so dinner is out then?"

Hearing the words and seeing his face she realised he had misunderstood and hastened to correct him.

"Not you, you nong! I should have added 'with strangers'." She reached over and touched his hand. "Dinner would be very nice, as long as we can hide somewhere away from everyone and make it an early one because jet-lag is starting to catch up with me and I'll be asleep by eight o'clock tonight wherever I am."

The clarification cheered him up no end. The plan had hardly been long-standing, it had only popped into his head as he had driven through some nearby towns on his way in and noticed a couple of reasonable-looking restaurants but had taken on more intent over the course of the past few hours so he smiled gently at her for a moment before saying,

"Very well. We're not that far from the coast so we can go over there, have some dinner and be back early. I still have to finish the key-note address for Wednesday morning so it will suit me to get rid of it tonight. I might get you to review it tomorrow, if you would."

She nodded.

"Okay. A pub feed will do, unless you want something fancier. My body clock's still out of whack – it thinks it's two in the morning – so I'm not that hungry."

Staff were moving around, picking up coffee cups and offering early evening drinks. When one of them approached, Harry waved him off, looked at his watch and said to her,

"We could set off now, if you like. It'll be after six by the time we get there."

Nodding again, she stretched luxuriously before hauling herself up.

"Right-o, let's go. I hope your car's heater is working!"

The evening passed very pleasantly, again spent quietly talking or equally quietly sitting while devouring some surprisingly good pub grub. It turned out that Hope was hungrier than she had thought after the better part of two days of not eating much ('"_airline food" is an oxymoron and therefore doesn't count!'_ had been her quick retort to Harry's gentle dig at her change of heart) while Harry, whose appetite had been sporadic to say the least since the events of spring 2011, found both the simple food and his companion's whole-hearted enjoyment of it rather beguiling and so couldn't help but join in. True to his word, though, they were back by her witching hour and headed for their rooms which, it rapidly became clear, were in the same direction. As they ducked into a lift on their own he asked where she was.

"Top floor. Room 8."

He suddenly grinned and held up his electronic tag.

"Guess where?"

She looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"Well, I suspect top floor for starters. Don't tell me you're in either six or ten. If you are and you snore loud enough for me to hear you through the wall you're dead meat. I like my sleep."

He shook his head.

"Close. Seven, and one of the few things I've never been accused of is snoring."

"Excellent! Directly opposite and glad to hear it. All I can hope is that whomever I _do _have as neighbours are equally as considerate." The lift stopped and they got out, walking along their corridor to the rooms which were, indeed, opposite. "It's convenient you're over the corridor." She suddenly grinned at him with a slightly wicked light in her green eyes. "Means we can get thoroughly pissed at the dinner on Tuesday night and whichever one of us stays upright longest can roll the other one home and slosh them through their doorway!"

He laughed at the sudden vision of the pair of them staggering along the corridor, both with a skin-full and probably trying to avoid getting stopped by anyone wanting to talk business; he wouldn't vouch for either of them being polite under those circumstances.

"Sounds good to me. The best thing about these dinners is usually the alcohol..." They had reached their respective doorways by this time so he swept a mock-bow and announced, with a flourish towards her room, "It's past your bed-time, Cinderella, you had better go to sleep before you turn into a pumpkin! And, sadly, I have that speech to finish writing." A beseeching expression crept into his eyes. "You wouldn't care to swap, would you? I'll sleep and you can write? It was a long drive up here."

Her sympathetic expression vanished in an instant to be replaced by one that was completely opposite.

"Oh, poor diddums. It can't have been as long as mine was, after being stuck in a tin tube twelve kilometres up in the air for almost a day so no, sorry, thanks for the offer. God knows what drivel you'd end up with if I wrote anything in my current state anyway! I'm sure you'll be fine so you can stop trying to wriggle out of your responsibilities, buster." She sketched a brief salute. "See you in the morning, if I wake up in time."

Spying one final opportunity for the evening to tease he offered generously,

"Do you want me to hammer on your door on the way to breakfast?" and was gratified by her shudder of distaste.

"Not if it's before 6.30 you don't. Any time after that is fair game, though."

She was just about ready when he kept his word at 6.45 the next morning. Peering blearily through the spy-hole first, she opened the door and greeted him with a jaundiced,

"Do you have to look _quite _so awake at this hour of the day?"

He just smiled at her churlish sally and countered with a mild,

"What, are you not dressed yet?"

Yawning elegantly she turned back towards the room, making for the _en-suite_, throwing over her shoulder,

"Almost. Just finishing putting my face on. I'll see you down there, if you want."

Finding he was in no hurry to breakfast alone Harry found himself saying,

"It's alright, I can wait."

Her muffled response wafted out of the bathroom.

"You'd better come in, then, people might wonder what you're doing if you keep propping up the door-frame and I don't bite, especially not when I'm still waking up from a dose of jet-lag."

He wandered over to the window and gazed out over the countryside while she finished off her makeup.

"You've got the view on this side of the building, haven't you?"

It was the same as the one she had been admiring from the terrace the previous afternoononly more spectacular for being three storeys higher. Early morning mist was rising from the fields and stream in the early light, a classic winter vista if ever there was one. Her voice floated out to him, sounding slightly distracted and a little surprised.

"Haven't you got a view?"

"Not like this. It's blocked by the woods behind us."

Re-emerging fully-faced, Hope wandered over and stood next to him for a moment, reassessing the vision that was slowly being tinged with gold and blue as the sun climbed higher. Even in the freezing depths of a Canberra winter she wouldn't see such a classic vision as that which was laid out in front of them – at home the trees, the landforms, the atmosphere, even the quality of the light itself was too wrong to produce anything even remotely like an English morning.

"Yes, it is rather lovely. I'd just come back from a walk down to the creek yesterday when you turned up; it's very pretty, even at this time of year." Turning away, conscious of the time, she muttered, "Now what the hell have I done with my shoes..."

The day went quickly, a mix of formal presentations and informal, free-flowing discussion sessions. Once breakfast was done they hardly saw each other until she spotted him at the sundowner session after the day's program was finished. He was still looking elegant in his charcoal suit, crisp pale blue shirt and silver grey tie but seemed a bit pallid and rather tired from where she was standing, observing the social interactions in general and him in particular. There were shadows under his eyes and, although he appeared to be socialising with those around him, it was clear he wasn't particularly enjoying the experience.

She didn't know how right she was. Harry could cope with the presentations and discussion sessions but the after-hours aspect was getting to him. Although he was well aware of the value of the practice he had never particularly enjoyed socialising – _networking, _to use the fashionable expression he loathed – with strangers at events like this but had been good at it when he wanted or needed to be; now, though, it all seemed incredibly bloody pointless. The Alpha Male preening and posturing for the sake of political advancement was now nothing more than an obvious irritant - he had always preferred to use a more subtle and more effective charm offensive – for which he no longer had the time or inclination.

He hadn't always felt so but he could just about place to the day when his attitude had begun to change: when Juliet had reappeared and started to play her own version of the game which had included trying to blackmail him. The disenchantment had finally reached totality with the deadly games played by RussiaFirst that had left both he and Ilya Gavrik reeling. The stark irony of those few minutes, in which Ilya had lost everything he thought he had known about his personal past and Harry had lost a personal future he hadn't even known existed, one where Ruth was about to haul him up onto the precipice to take a leap of faith, _together, _to an unknown and uncertain fate away from the security services, leaving both men tasting the ashes of defeat and turning the pair of them completely away from anything political, wasn't lost on him. Ilya had made a better fist of leaving it mostly behind than he had: he was still in the job, after all, and thus at this meeting, watching the younger generation swallow the same false lures of power whereas Ilya was not, busying himself with the not inconsiderable task of decentralising his vast business empire out of Russia into what were apparently the safer international waters of London, Dallas and Singapore, although he was still acting – increasingly reluctantly – in his ministerial position for the Putin government.

Harry envied Ilya sometimes, for having business affairs in which to bury himself, but had at least given up torturing himself with wondering what that aborted future with Ruth might have held. She had clearly had something in mind but he would never know now what it was and it did him no good at all to dwell on it. Instead of that phantasm the reality was that he was stuck here in the early evening surrounded by idiots being seduced by the same savage little world that had hooked him in almost forty years before. Right now he would rather disappear up to his room on his own with a good single malt for company... He could imagine what Ruth would say to that idea and none of it would be good.

Sighing silently and thoroughly fed up with the currently inane chattering of the group he was with, he scanned the room, wondering where Hope was; at least if he was with her he wouldn't _have_ to talk about inanities, or work or anything else for that matter. She was one of the few people he had ever known who truly appreciated silence and didn't have a compulsive need to fill it with chatter and at times over the past few months that had been an absolute god-send. It didn't take long to spot her lurking beside a pillar, half hidden by a pot-plant, nursing a glass of red wine and watching the crowd with that quiet stillness. Her claret coloured suit was rather good for lurking in that particular room, he realised, as it almost matched the colour of the gilded wall panels... Catching her eye he cast her a mournful look; her lips twitched, repressing a sympathetic grin (she loathed socialising even more than he did, which was another reason why she had eventually removed herself from field work) before she pushed herself off the pillar and wove her way through the crowd towards him. Excusing himself from his present company, he joined her half-way across the floor. Giving a relieved smile he asked,

"Were you lurking with intent over there, or just lurking?"

She grinned.

"Both. With intent: hiding from the leader of the Chinese delegation who won't leave me alone now she's descovered I speak Mandarin. Without intent: watching all the intriguing politicking along with identifying those who are trying to avoid it! It's not just us, in case you were wondering."

He smiled again.

"I wasn't wondering. Or not about that." Nodding towards the chattering mob he added with an expression that was a mixture of mild distaste, slight despair and a dash of hope, "Do you want to stay here for dinner or shall we run away again?"

She gave him that slightly disconcerting, steady look that had been known to un-nerve many others in equally powerful positions as she considered the offer for all of about three nano-seconds before replying gravely,

"Run away, please. We're spending far too much time here as it is. Pizza will do or a take-away curry. Or anything, really, with the possible exception of Maccas or KFC..." Leaning forward her tone suddenly changed to something that sounded distinctly like wheedling. "But let me go and get out of these heels first, _please_! I'm out of practice with wearing the damned things and they're killing me."

He agreed, deciding to ditch the tie and suit jacket in favour of something more comfortable. Managing to sneak out without getting way-laid, they headed up to their rooms, leaving their doors open so they could continue to talk across the corridor while they changed. They were about to leave when his phone rang; rolling his eyes, he mouthed something about 'the Home Secretary' before wandering back into his room to talk. Leaning on his door frame she spotted the printed draft of his talk, remembered his comment from the previous evening and snaffled it, taking it back to her own room to read. She was almost finshed it when he walked in.

"Sorry. Panicking politicians." He joined her at the small table and leaned on the back of her chair, scanning the few notes that she had jotted down. "How is it looking?"

"Good. Nothing much there to pick that I can see. I've scribbled a few editing notes." She gave the paperwork back and stood up, chivvying him towards the door. "Come on, let's go. I'm starving tonight!"

The plan had been to find something in the nearest town but there weren't too many options and all looked busy so they kept going, finding a little trattoria a couple of villages away instead. They had a more leisurely time of it this evening, with no hurry to get back, and managed to put away a bottle of red between them before making tracks just before ten.

The second day was a repeat of the first. Again, they barely saw each other after breakfast, caught up in passing at lunch and that was it until he knocked on her door in the early evening to escort her down to the conference dinner, a requirement they would both have preferred to avoid but couldn't: the thought of a night that would descend sooner rather than later into another round of pointless politicking and ephemeral status-building, despite what they were all _supposed _to be doing, didn't enthrall either of them so they had made a gentleman's agreement to have each other's back against any sign of encroaching boredem or death by point-scoring. Compounding the lack of enthusiasm for the evening for Hope was the date; she hadn't mentioned it to Harry and didn't intend to but, although the business of the day had kept her mind off things she knew it would be harder during an evening of generally boring speeches and yet more vapid, empty socialising. However, she vowed to do her best to not get overshadowed, for his sake as much as anything, as he had been so much better this week; the process of absorption was obviously – finally – under way for him.

Ready, albeit not in the most scintillating of moods, when he knocked on the door she opened it to be greeted by a sight for sore eyes that made her smile at the sheer unexpectedness of it:: the man was immaculate in flawless black-tie, looking slim, elegant, fair and, surprisingly, _happy. _She definitely wouldn't bring him down by saying anything of her own concerns, which were immaterial anyway. Instead, standing back to bluntly admire him she said,

"Jesus Christ, Harry, you don't half scrub up okay when you want to, do you? I shall be the belle of the ball with you on my arm."

He grinned at her very genuine surprise but could feel himself turning a little pink at her words so he expertly deflected the compliment back at her.

"You would be the belle of the ball anyway, looking like that."

It was only the truth. Whatever he had been expecting it wasn't quite the vision of old-school Hollywood glamour that was in front of him. Dressed in a floor length sea-green gown with long sleeves and a sweet-heart neckline accentuated by art deco jewelled dress-clips, it was made of a fabric that, somehow, looked heavy, soft and shiny, almost wet, all at the same time. It clung in all the right places, showing off the results of her efforts in the gym and the martial arts studio very nicely, he thought, and was enhanced by subtle jewellery, makeup and hair. Winking, she bobbed a small curtsey.

"Well, if a Knight of the Realm thinks so then we shall quite dazzle the room!" As she moved to pick up a short, cream cape made out of the same fabric and threw it around her shoulders he couldn't take his eyes off her or the shimmering, liquid appearance of the material. Shaking his head as she rejoined him he commented,

"I know nothing about fabric but I know my daughter would kill to get hold of some of whatever your dress is made from."

"I hope she's got deep pockets, then." A sly sideways look replaced the grimace of pain that had appeared as she remembered the cost of what she was wearing. "Or that you have! It's ultrafine wool woven with silk and costs a fortune. I had this dress made out of it from a 1940s pattern because I've always had a slight _tendre _for forties and fifties fashion on the rare occasions I bother to dress up and wanted something that would look good while being warm."

He could vouch for the success of at least half of that aim and did so, cheerfully.

"Well, it certainly fulfills the former!"

"And it _is_ warm!" Tucking her key into a discrete pocket she added, "We should get going, I suppose. The sooner it starts, the sooner we can bunk off afterwards..." He looked glum for a moment before sighing and proferring his arm; she accepted and, metaphorically girding their loins, they headed down to do their duty.

It was every bit as deadly as they had expected it to be. Their immediate company started out civil enough but after the second round of drinks inhibitions began to relax and the sniping began. Harry and Hope skilfully kept out of it while appearing to remain politely involved and at least the food and drink were good, helping them through the trial that was the speeches. After the official part of the evening was done the social aspect took over and they split up to do the obligatory circulating. Hope lasted about half an hour before the mind-numbing tedium of it all got to her and she knew it was time to escape for some fresh air and to deal with the day on her own for a little while as the pressure to be sociable was starting to wear her down. Harry was nowhere to be seen, for which she was grateful – there was no way she'd be able to sidle away unseen if he was in the room – so, throwing her cape around her shoulders again, she slipped out through one of the French doors onto the terrace and slowly walked down to the far end, away from the light and noise to where she could breathe the chill night air in a bit of peace.

A bright quarter-moon was floating high in the sky, its light obscuring many of the stars, and the night was surprisingly pleasant for the time of the year, which merely meant that she wasn't freezing to death on the spot quite yet. Staring out at the dimly lit gardens she let her mind wander back to that night fourteen years ago when she, still a new bride, had become a widow. The pain, grief and guilt were still there but their edges had dulled almost completely with time and the realisation that nothing she could do could have either prevented what had happened or was ever going to bring him back. On top of that she knew, then and now, that the last thing he would have wanted was for her life to essentially end with his so she had gone on with their work and, as best she could, with her life and suddenly it was fourteen years later. _Fourteen_...

_You used to captivate me by your resonating light;  
now I'm bound by the life you left behind.  
Your face—it haunts my once pleasant dreams.  
Your voice—it chased away all the sanity in me.  
These wounds won't seem to heal.  
This pain is just too real.  
There's just too much that time cannot erase…_

That song had seared itself into her brain the first time she had heard it almost a decade ago to the day, plunging her back to the molten despair that had engulfed her five years before that, and still reared its head at moments like this, although its affect had become much more remote and somewhat colder with the passing years. Now, the sadness of the final verse, in both lyrics and voice, was what really resonated...

_I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone  
but though you're still with me  
I've been alone all along.  
_

Wynne was with her, sure enough, every day – not one went past that she didn't have some thought of him – but it was cold comfort because he really was gone and, after all this time, sometimes it did seem as though he had been a figment of her imagination or a dream, that none of it had been real and instead she had been on her own all along.

She didn't see or hear Harry when he first walked onto the terrace a few minutes later, looking for her, and it took a moment for him to see her in the distant gloom. As soon as he did he realised that there was something amiss just by her stance. She had been a little subdued since breakfast and certainly over this evening, he had returned to the land of the living enough now to see that, and it clearly wasn't just a case of being in a sombre mood, there was something more to it. Standing in the dark, staring unseeingly at the gardens, she was bathed in the colourless moonlight and, although erect, there was something slightly hunched about her shoulders that wasn't related to the fact that she was hugging herself to keep warm, more likely was to do with the incredibly bleak expression on her face. For the first time in the past twenty one months able to see through his own despair he could recognise something of hers.

Approaching quietly he touched her shoulder and asked softly,

"What's the matter?"

Hope had heard his footsteps only when he was almost there; the question didn't really surprise her but the gentle touch did and was appreciated rather more than the question. _She should have realised he would figure it out_. Continuing to stare into the night, hoping that if he couldn't see her eyes he might accept some prevarication, she responded lightly,

"Oh, nothing much, or nothing for you to concern yourself with anyway."

_I'm not about to buy that one_. In the past, in a different life, he would have but not any more, in his own small new world order.

"Your expression suggests differently."

He obviously wasn't going to let it go – it had been a little silly to think she could completely disguise her mood – so, still not looking at him, she replied evenly, almost conversationally, with no tone in her voice and while steadfastly gazing up at the moon,

"Despite what I've said to you in the past, once a year I do allow myself a few moments to consider why the hell we bother doing what we do, for the price we pay, and if it would actually be better to let the human population of this poor planet implode the way it apparently wants to. I can admit this to you now: sometimes, I think it isn't." She felt his arm go around her shoulder but said nothing and didn't look, merely allowed herself to lean into his side a little, grateful for the friendly warmth. "Then, once I've wallowed for a bit – like about now – I allow the other, dominant half of my brain to take over again and run through all the reasons why it _is_, despite the price. Obviously that side wins, every time, not only because it has to but because it's true." _Maybe that would be enough for him and she wouldn't have to go any further into it_ but sof course it wasn't.

Saying nothing at first, Harry merely drew her further into his side as he considered her words and the dead tone in which they were delivered and realised that the two didn't entirely mesh. Weighing it up in his mind he decided that they were close enough now for him to risk saying something that might end up in a flat denial but also had the potential to help her the way she had helped him last year. His voice was very soft when he finally said,

"That's not all, is it? Do you want to talk about it?" He had a feeling he knew what it was but if, after all these years she needed to talk to someone, the least he could do was offer.

Hope heard the questions and inwardly quailed but recognised that he probably had a right to ask after all her gentle prodding the year before. It wasn't that she didn't talk about it at all, she did, but only to a very select group of people and even then she hadn't done so for a long time. She would tell him what she had told the others and take it from there, although what she was about to say was usually enough to shut most people up. _Harry's not 'most people', though..._ Maintaining her neutral tone and expression and still staring unseeingly at the moon she proffered her explanation.

"It was fourteen years ago tonight, Harry, that Wynne was captured, slowly tortured over several days and then killed by members of the Indonesian military in the scrub of East Timor. Betrayed by people he thought were on his side, executed without trial and buried in a shallow grave. And all for nothing because you know what? He wasn't even the person they were after, he was given away almost as an aside, to protect their own arses and curry favour with the powers-that-be. And, to top it off, by the end of that year, Indonesia had been booted out of there anyway and the UN was on the ground, overseeing the transition to independence."

_Oh, fuck..._ His heart broke for her as the full horror of the story washed over him. Although intensely curious, he had respected her self-containment and had resisted the temptation to go trawling for information on Sergeant Wynne Sharrug and his demise, content that if whe wanted him to know she would eventually tell him. Thus far all she had ever expanded on, after that first conversation in front of the memorial wall, was that her husband had been under cover with the FALINTIL forces in the hills, monitoring Indonesian movements, when he had been caught and killed. Nothing about torture, betrayal or lonely bush graves. That just escalated the repugnance and sadness of the story to heights that no-one should have to bear. Squeezing her more tightly he started to say, a catch in his voice reflecting the despair he was feeling,

"I'm sorry—"

It was the catch that did it. _No, he definitely wasn't 'most people'_. She looked at him at last, smiling the bleakest smile he thought he had ever seen and with eyes oddly dull despite what might be unshed tears and definitely was the old pain, and found herself succumbing to an entirely unfamiliar but intense desire to spill truths she never thought she would tell anyone again after she had finished with the work psychologist all those years ago.

"Oh, it doesn't finish there. You know what's the worst of all? I had two long-term assets in the area who had been totally reliable for years. I passed their names onto Wynne and he used one of them to get in touch with FALINTIL and, occasionally, to get information out when there was no other way. It was my asset who betrayed him."

She didn't know why she was telling him this – maybe because he was about the only person she had ever talked to whom she knew would genuinely understand every implication of every word – but now she had started the words just kept on coming, a syndrome she had heard about but never experienced in herself before.

"The Indonesians were actually after one of Xanana Gusmao's commanders and my husband just happened to be with the man's group at the time. Just observing and reporting, nothing else, but my asset told them he was there when he squealed on the commander as well." Her voice was still toneless, the tears still unshed, if anything being reabsorbed.

Harry could think of nothing to say as the similarity between Wynne's and Bill's fates left him almost breathless, his gut contorted into a screaming, burning knot of pain as he recognised that very singular guilt which had dominated his being from that day in Belfast in August 1978. The merest hint of heartbreak echoed behind her next words.

"At least Ruth died in your arms, trying to protect you. She had that. Wynne died slowly and alone, for nothing, and we didn't even find out for certain for a month. I didn't get him back to bury for almost a year." A desolate, arid glance came his way as she considered their joint tragedies and added, musing gently, "Although I'm not sure which option is crueller: being there and seeing the light die. Or not..."

At a loss, all he could do was take her fully in his arms, tears spilling from his own eyes as they hadn't from hers while his heart broke all over again. A deep, shaky sigh escaped her as she held him tight, face buried in his neck, and he rocked her gently, still unable to speak and barely able to breathe through the shock of the revelation. No wonder they had recognised each other as kindred spirits last year, only she had suffered the equivalent of Bill and Ruth all rolled into one, not separated by decades, and delivered oh so slowly. His losses had been like a _tsunami_, sudden, unexpected, savage, devastating and blindingly fast where hers must have been the equivalent of drowning slowly in an all-engulfing tide of treacle, suffocating a little more every day under the weight of ever-growing certainty until that final crushing blow of confirmation. How had she stayed in one piece after that? Now, finally and irrevocably, he understood why _she _had understood him so very well. Sensing his distress Hope took a deep breath and lifted her head to look at him, eyes huge but voice rock-steady.

"It's alright. Really."

He could tell she meant it but he wasn't entirely convenced so begged to differ. Getting his breath back he managed a relatively calm,

"Clearly, it's not."

It was all out now so she might as well continue on. She shook her head slightly.

"It _is_. The grief isn't even for me any more – I am still here, having some sort of a life, after all – it's for Wynne and all the 'what might have been's' for _him_ that he never got to explore. He had so much potential but... well, we'll never know now, will we." The truth of her statement caused a knife to twist in Harry's chest as he recognised the verbalisation of what he had been feeling for so long about Ruth and all the other young ones, from Bill through Helen, Danny, Ben, Zafar, Jo, Tariq: all still vibrant and full of life and with it all – experience, families, loves and losses, all the ephemera that made life worth-while – still ahead of them when it was cruelly terminated. It was bad enough with those slightly older, who had had more of a life and even a family, like Adam and Fiona, but when they hadn't had the chance to make it that far it just seemed more poignant, for all that nothing could outweigh the losses of the Wes Carter's of the world...

Hope felt rather than heard another slight hitch, this time in his breath rather than his voice, and definitely saw the shadow that flickered through his eyes and regret coloured her voice as she reached a hand up to gently cup his cheek as she had that day, months ago now, at the airport just before she left. "Now I've upset you, which was the last thing I wanted. I'm the one who's sorry, I shouldn't have dumped that on you without warning but I haven't ever been able to tell anyone else before who might _really_ get it. Who's been there as well."

He sighed and turned his face slightly to brush a friendly kiss on her palm, saying with an air of finality,

"Don't apologise. There's no need. We've got too much in common to require apologies."

She nodded and they continued looking at each other for a moment considering what had been said with nothing much more to add. For ever afterwards neither of them would be able to identify what, exactly, provided the oxygen which caused the tiny spark that had been lurking, steadfastly ignored, at the back of both their minds for longer than either would admit to come roaring to life and cause a sudden, not-quite-imperceptible change in the atmosphere. With no further words and zero forethought their lips met, gently at first but with increasing ardour as they embraced fully and the kiss deepened. Lost in each other and the complete surprise at this utterly unexpected turn of events an endless moment passed before they broke apart for air; he went to say something but, certain it was going to be another misplaced apology, she shook her head and pressed her fingers against his lips before their mouths found each other again, more passionate than before, as the long-dormant desire washed over them leaving both stunned in its wake. Their hearts were beating wildly as they parted again; locking eyes, he found himself requesting softly,

"May I make love to you tonight?"

Her reply was instant, a whispered,

"Yes," as she drew his head towards her for another kiss. Riding the wave of pure, thoughtless impulse they began to nuzzle each other's faces and throats, both on fire in a way neither had felt for years before, finally, she went on, "Take me to bed, Harry. Now."

They moved back towards the venue, arms around each other and exchanging few words, neither of them thinking beyond the twin shocks of such powerful reawakened feelings, for _each other_. Making their way into the building by the front entrance to avoid the post-dinner partying they arrived at their opposing rooms without any interference, spending the elevator trip nestled together; once there, he opened his door and drew her inside and into his arms to kiss her again. He felt her slipping his jacket off his shoulders and released her long enough to finish the task, then his tie followed as he slowly unzipped her dress, his hands warm on the skin of her back, as she started to unbutton his shirt. Both found their hands shaking. Her dress and bra joined the jacket and tie, followed by the shirt, on the floor and they stood for a moment, wrapped in the embrace and the unfamiliar feeling of skin against skin before they moved to the bed to finish undressing and start exploring each other, taking their time making love, slowly, sensuously and very, very thoroughly. The passion and intensity of both the act and their emotional response surprised both of them; afterwards, when they were entwined, deeply satisfied, he caressed her face and asked simply, still a little dazed and not at all sure of the answer for himself,

"Are you okay?"

Hope smiled gently, still somewhat astonished herself, but replied with perfect truth,

"Yes. Very much so. You?"

"More than okay." He kissed her, languorously and long, delighting in her ardent response. "I don't know where this is heading but as I never expected to feel anything for anyone again I'm going to take it as the incredible gift that it is."

She knew where he was coming from. When she had been at about the same amount of distance from Wynne's death as he now was from Ruth's she had also been largely anaesthetised to emotion herself and even though feeling had eventually returned it had not achieved this level of intensity, hence her astonishment.

"I know. A gift that is all the more beautiful because it was out of the blue." She gazed at Harry with undisguised wonder, trying to work out how on earth they had ended up here, but quickly gave up and kissed him instead before snuggling into his side, drawing abstract designs on his chest with one finger as he absently ran a hand through her hair and they both started to come to terms with events, what they felt and how things had suddenly, miraculously, changed. Eventually they slept, spooned together as though they had been doing this forever and more at peace than either had been for many, many years.

'My Immortal'. Written by Amy Lee and Ben Moody, performed by Evanescence.


	6. Chapter 6

6\. **February 2013 – 2 – Norfolk/London – Aftermath **

As was his habit Harry awoke in the very early morning hours. Normally he would stare sightlessly at the ceiling, reliving the horrors of the recent past until he could stand it no more and would get up to prowl from room to room until dawn broke, giving him a reason to go to work, but this time the warmth of the body curled against his diverted his mind elsewhere, towards the concept that, perhaps, he might be getting another, totally undeserved chance. The events of the previous evening had been totally unplanned: when he had gone to find her it was solely because he had been concerned about her unusually remote demeanour during the dinner and her equally out of character disappearance afterwards while he was temporarily way-laid. Certainly nothing like what had unfolded had occurred to him as something that was likely to happen, due in no small part to never having consciously admitted to himself that he had found her attractive, from that first week she had arrived and being quite serious in his intentions to not get involved with anyone ever again. His sub-conscious had clearly had other plans, though.

The moon was casting bright, oblique shadows through the open curtains of the window, sliding its gilded light across the polished glass of a large, artfully framed photographic print to reflect on his companion as he allowed himself to finally remember that dark, unhappy night after she had left in November. When he had finally hauled himself home it was late and he had gone, for the first time in months, straight to the whiskey bottle. By midnight, after two hours of failing to self-medicate the pain, the bottle was almost empty and he was barely conscious, his mind wandering wherever it wished, unfettered by any sober constraints.

Initially, habitually, it had wandered to Ruth and what might have been but, as time wore on, it had headed in an entirely different direction: to the airport and how bereft he had been as Hope had disappeared inside. Then the sensation of her hands on his face, followed by how she had felt in his arms and the touch of her lips on his cheek. The treacherous sub-conscious had then been considering how she would feel and taste if he kissed her, properly, when the clock had started gently chiming midnight and his consciousness suddenly re-exerted control, horrified and guilt-stricken at what he had been thinking. He had resiled the thought at the time and immediately repressed it, successfully managing until now to forget it. Well, now he knew how she tasted and what it felt like to hold her, naked, in his arms and in his bed and the answer to both was glorious and absolutely right.

Gazing at her sleeping quietly next to him in the glimmering light he marvelled at how easy, beautiful and natural last night had been. Recognition; request; consent, leading to the sort of almost devout communion between the two of them that he had rarely achieved before – really only in the early days with Jane, before he caused that marriage to go wing-over into an irretrievable spin into the ground. Was it because they really were two sides of that one coin that it had all been so simple and so perfect? Or that having had his soul rent so violently asunder in those few weeks in Spring two years before meant that he would never again be entirely able to hide behind his formerly impregnable psychological walls, leaving him a little more vulnerable, a little more open and empathic than he had ever been? Perhaps. Probably both.

All he knew was that the words had emerged, unbidden and before he could bite them back; her response, instantaneous and certain, had lifted his heart for the first time since that dark and terrible day on the river and made him realise that he was still alive after all – certainly, the act of giving and receiving loving pleasure had proven that. He had shed one or two quiet tears immediately afterwards, mostly, he now realised, of relief that he was still capable of feeling something other than numbness or suffering for himself and was apparently able to provide something similar for another bruised soul.

What would Ruth have thought? She probably would have been cheering him on, if he was honest. She had had her small piece of uncomplicated happiness when she was in Cyprus and he knew, in his battered heart, that irrespective of the disaster that their final couple of years had been she would not begrudge him something similar now that she wasn't here to provide it herself. He just hadn't been able to confront the prospect before now (witness the reaction to that one moment of drunken wondering about Hope), the pain had become his familiar instead, constant, known, unchanging, almost safe. He wouldn't make any plans right now – that smacked too much of counting unhatched chickens – but maybe Hope's name had been a harbinger for the future. Maybe here was one last chance, if she wanted it and he wasn't misreading the situation yet again, for him to redeem himself on the most personal level, without stuffing up or hurting anyone, including himself, this time. Wrapping himself around her, he gently kissed the back of her neck and, content, drifted back to sleep.

Oblivious to her bed companion's earlier wakeful musing Hope woke a couple of hours later. Harry was sleeping peacefully, one arm flung across her waist and, in sleep, looking more like the younger man she remembered from West Berlin, London and Bangkok as she unknowingly began to echo his own actions in contemplating the night before. Although she had known since Germany in the late eighties that he was a bit of a dish he had, if she was honest, never quite been to her taste, being a tad too pretty for her and in any case she tended to prefer brunettes to blonds. However, she had certainly _liked_ the man, in the flesh at the time and by way of their intermittent, wickedly funny email correspondence since. After the events of East Timor in 1999 she, too, had developed no intention of ever getting seriously involved with anyone again, either inside or outside the intelligence community – too hard on either front, for different reasons – and by the end of her previous visit she had been fairly certain he was of the same mind. Pain of that sort was somewhere neither of them wanted to risk going to again, so the likelihood of events such as last night had never even registered.

_That wasn't entirely the truth._ The faintest of inklings had occurred after his phone call at Christmas, when she had been driving up to Sydney and found herself considering the cause of her quiet happiness after the conversation. Part of that had included a blunt assessment of whether she would actually consider something more, in the unlikely even it was offered, but there was also the slight issue of the state of mind he was currently in. Well aware of his reputation as the ultimate hard man, his armour impenetrable after so many years, she had been genuinely shocked to find him so completely vulnerable when she had first arrived in London earlier in the year. The whole mess of two years before (John Bateman, Albany, the enquiry, Max Witt, the Gavriks, Tariq, Jim Coaver, Ruth), piled one atop the other over the course of a very few months, had clearly shattered the armour into irretrievable pieces and, although he appeared to have pulled himself back together, it had been blindingly clear during the course of that first day that his equanimity was little more than a veneer as thin as ricepaper: strong enough most of the time but only requiring the tiniest of rips to destroy its integrity. Having been there herself, her heart had broken for him but the thought of getting involved with him, in that state or any other, just hadn't entered her head. A personal relationship was probably the last thing that either of them wanted or needed at that point. Dismissing it as just close friendship – largely true – she hadn't thought about it again until last Sunday when her heart had startled her by giving a bit of a lurch which wasn't entirely due to surprise when he had joined her. Then, _completely_ without warning, last night. She didn't think either of them had started it; the move had been mutual, as had been the response. And not only had it been amazing, it had also felt utterly right.

She gazed at him, an unfamiliar feeling of tenderness flickering to life. As he had said last night, there was no way of knowing where this was likely to take them but, she thought, even if it ended up being a one-off night it would have been worth it. One thing she could guarantee was that they had both needed the physical contact. If it became more than that, all the better. Wynne, she knew, would have had a black appreciation of the fact that something new and wonderful had possibly started for her on that day of all days. In a momentary flight of whimsy she could just about see him and Ruth sitting comfortably on a cloud up there somewhere and plotting how to throw their relicts together...

Deciding she was overthinking it all she clasped the hand that was resting on her belly in her own and let her cheek rest against the top of his head. It was easier all round to not wonder where they might end up and to have neither plans nor expectations on that front. All she would really aim for in the present moment was to maintain, in the longer term, their very genuine friendship.

It wasn't long before he stirred, pulling her closer until she was pressed against his chest before kissing her on the forehead and opening his eyes. Hazel irises met green and there were smiles in both.

"Hello," he said, softly.

"Hello," she answered, equally as softly. Another mutual movement brought their lips together for a gentle morning kiss that was followed by another and another. He couldn't believe how good she felt in his arms and didn't want to stop kissing her; she couldn't believe how right it felt to be _in_ his arms and didn't want to stop kissing him. Eventually his lips left hers and trailed fire across her cheekbone to her ear where he murmured,

"Thank you. For last night. And now. And whatever is to come." _So it wasn't a one-night stand then. _She felt somewhat cheered by the thought but decided now wasn't the time for serious discussion so answered flippantly but with a slow smile,

"No, sweet, thank _you_. For the same. It's been a long time between drinks..." he knew exactly what she meant by that and she saw the wry acknowledgement register in those dark eyes, interestingly flecked with green and gold at this close range, as she finished her sentence "...so any time you want a repeat performance, feel free!"

He kissed her, gently, then gazed into her eyes and, joy of joys, there was a spark of mischief lurking in his own amber-dark depths. Picking up her flippancy he quirked an eyebrow and asked innocently,

"Any time?"

"Mmm." She smiled back before adding a clarification. "Well, within reason. Doing this in the middle of your key-note address this morning, for example, might be a bit much."

His mournful response made her laugh.

"Oh, I don't know, it might stop some of the audience from going to sleep..."

Diversion working, they giggled over the inappropriate images that popped into their minds before the giggling turned back into kissing which then led to its natural conclusion, once more as though it was the most natural, easy and uncomplicated thing in the world and deeply satisfying for both of them. Eventually the duties of the day forced them, extremely reluctantly, up and about, a quick coffee having to substitute for food as his key-note address was up first. She knew he was dreading it (not nervous, just hated giving public speeches) but would never have guessed from the smooth, polished performance. _Quite the raconteur, our Harry_, she thought, as she watched him get the audience eating out of the palm of his hand within the first couple of minutes. The tone was light, the subject matter heavy and he handled it all brilliantly, far beyond what she had ever been able to achieve in a similar situation. A longer-than-normal question time had been allowed for afterwards and every minute was needed; even after that he was getting bailed up every few steps as he tried to get back to her during the mid-morning break, only achieving that feat a few minutes before the next session was due to start.

She herself had just escaped the metaphorical clutches of one of the Cousins from across the Pond when she glanced up to see him, finally free of obstructions, approaching across the floor. One of the sunniest smiles she had ever seen greeted her as she stated the obvious,

"You look happy."

A grimace appeared, briefly relacing the smile. "I'm glad it's over."

She nodded in understanding, held out her hands and said, as he took them and kissed both,

"It went well. Made a few people think, judging by the comments I've been hearing."

"Good, that was the point of it!" He let her hands go and placed his own on her waist, drawing her to him for another kiss, full on the mouth this time and not even remotely demure. She responded in kind; a couple of delegates who had been about to approach backed off, hastily; when the couple parted she murmured, one hand still in his soft caramel curls and lips barely lifting from his,

"Well, that was nice."

"I hope so!" He kissed her again, briefly. "You don't mind, then?"

She stopped kissing him long enough to ask, a slight frown on her forehead,

"Mind what?"

"Others knowing. We're in public, after all."

She gave a low and rather dirty chuckle and responded, punctuating her words with more kisses,

"Harry, I've never given a fat rat's arse about what other people think and I'm not about to start now!"

_Was that __relief__ that just flashed through his eyes_? she thought. _Odd..._

It _was_ relief. After so many years of nursing Ruth's insecurities about anyone finding out about them, despite there being very little for anyone to actually discover due to her vacillating affections, and later fielding her barely-repressed anger at the world, taken out on him, he was finding Hope's breezy, calm acceptance of everything he was (and wasn't) and her enthusiasm for and open enjoyment of the sudden, unexpected physical turn their relationship had taken a massive relief. Everything straight-forward, no issues to worry about treading on. _Maybe this was what it was supposed to be like_. Pushing the thought away as unworthy, he returned his concentration to the woman in his arms now, kissing her again just as the bell for the start of the next session rang.

"_Damn.._"

She laughed and let him go.

"I know but maybe it's just as well otherwise I suspect we would be heading to somewhere entirely different than the conference room in a minute!"

He sighed.

"I wish. I have to have another coffee before we go in, though..."

The rest of the day dragged: interesting enough but they both had their minds elsewhere. Finally the day finished, finally the sundowners were over and finally they could quietly and unobtrusively escape upstairs. It was her room this time (she got the key out first), where shoes were kicked off, jackets thrown on chairs and kissing became the order of the day again. Eventually lifting her lips from his she asked,

"What are we doing tonight?" A lazy half-smile greeted her, as did a very obvious invitation in the depths of his eyes. Sighing, she went on, "I meant for dinner."

He nibbled her earlobe and responded reasonably,

"That can be dinner."

"No, you reprobate, _that's_ dessert!"

"Oh." He appeared to consider the options. "Whatever you want. There's always room service. Or the pub."

"Good, nothing fancy then. In which case," she kissed him soundly before stepping back, "I'm going to get this bloody makeup off. I won't be long so make yourself comfortable. The scotch is all yours if you want it."

She disappeared into the bathroom and they continued talking in a desultory manner while he did indeed make himself comfortable and let his mind roam happily over the events of the last day while she did much the same. When she reappeared, devoid of makeup and tights, he was sprawled on the bed, propped up by pillows, with his tie gone to join his jacket and his shirt half un-buttoned, nursing a glass of whiskey while staring pensively out the window. _He did dishevelled rather well_, she thought; he turned to smile at her as she stepped into the bedroom, put the drink on the bedside table and, echoing her movement from the morning, held out a hand. Smiling back, she walked over and sat next to him, taking the proferred hand and kissing it.

"Everything alright?"

He nodded.

"Mmm. Just pondering how quickly and completely life can change, for the better for once. Twenty four hours ago all I was thinking about was how soon we would be able to decently skip out after dinner and head for a quiet drink. That we would end up instead making rather beautiful love wasn't even on the radar."

"I know. It almost makes you wonder if there really are some old crones sitting on high and that they've finally decided to go easy on both of us. Whatever the case, I'm not going to question any of it, just enjoy it."

Silently agreeing with everything she said, he reached his free hand out to touch her cheek; half-closing her eyes, she leaned into his touch as he gently cupped her face. She loved his hands, she decided: large, capable, strong and yet surprisingly tender at times like this and incredibly arousing at others, as she had discovered last night. He traced the shape of her lips with a finger before lightly continuing a line down her throat to her chest; meeting the buttons on her blouse he began to undo them, working down until they were all undone and he could pull the tails of her shirt out of the waistband of her skirt. She opened her eyes and gazed at him, smoky with desire.

"I thought we were going out for dinner?"

"We are," he replied, voice deep and just slightly uneven. "But I need some skin against skin time first."

"Ah..."

She leaned over him and, working swiftly, undid the rest of his buttons and pulled his shirt loose as well. Sighing in pleasure, he pulled her onto his chest, arms wrapped firmly around her: he had meant what he had said about _needing_ the therapeutic effects of bare skin contact and could feel himself becoming more peaceful as her warmth melded with his. She sighed as well and relaxed into the strength of his embrace, enjoying the long-unfamiliar sensation of being held by a man, and that's where they stayed for several long, silent, enjoyable minutes, until she felt his hands moving down her back and over her behind, where they started to tug her skirt up to her hips. Lifting her head she looked at him and saw the mischief lurking in the depths of his eyes; running her fingers through his curls she dipped her face to his and kissed him once, then again. It didn't stop the exploratory hands, though; lifting her mouth from his she said, slowly, clearly and patiently,

"Harry, my love, if you still want us to go out for dinner you had really better get your hands out of my underwear. Now!" He laughed, low and sexy, and continued to do exactly what he had been doing. Deciding to get her own back she started toying with his zip. "Oh well, if you're going to be like that..."

As she suspected, once the boot was on the other foot (so to speak) it didn't take long for him to concede defeat before it was too late. Wrapping both arms around her waist and rolling her over onto her back, pinned to the bed, he announced cheerfully,

"Patience, madam! I want to leave this until later so I can go to sleep with you in my arms again."

Having been about to retaliate with a few underhanded moves of her own, instead she softened at his words and the tender expression in his eyes. Smiling, she kissed him and ran her hands down his back to rest on his rear.

"Alright, you cheeky bastard. I'll buy that." Suddenly slapping him on the behind she added, "But you'd still better get off me, otherwise we'll never get out of here!"

Dinner was at another pub a couple of towns away; it was getting late by the time they got back but they hardly noticed the time, heading straight back to her room where they were in each other's arms as soon as the door was closed, kissing deeply as they stumbled towards the bed. Little was said until some time later when she stretched her hips out and flopped onto her back, reaching for his hand as she announced formally,

"Congratulations, Sir Harry, you've got the job."

Still breathing heavily he nonetheless laughed and asked,

"What job?"

"Sex slave. If you want it, it's all yours, you passed the interview with flying colours!"

He turned his head to look at her, still laughing.

"Oh, I want it alright! As long as you can make allowances for the slave no longer being as young as he was and don't expect this performance every day..."

Propping herself on her elbow, she gently stroked his face, understanding perfectly what he was saying.

"Don't worry, the mistress is no spring chicken either and in any case infinitely prefers quality over quantity."

Overwhelmed by emotion he didn't trust himself to say any more, for fear that he would blurt out what he didn't even want to admit to himself yet. Instead, he kissed her again before wrapping her in his arms,

"And now for the other pleasure of sleeping with you in my arms..."

For the first time in almost two years, he didn't wake in the early-morning dark.

The next day, the second-last of the congress, was almost a replica of the previous, minus the necessity of delivering a speech and with the main difference being that in the weather: around lunch time a change came through and it started snowing. Hope wasn't impressed – she wasn't fond of cold, let alone snow – and it wrecked their plans of disappearing for the last evening so, at the end of the day, they retired to her room again (his excuse being, truthfully, that her bed was more comfortable than his and didn't squeak...) with a bottle of wine and settled themselves comfortably on the couch. The quiet small-talk was replaced by longer silences as they relaxed, gazing out the window into the snow falling gently in the fast-fading light. Eventually the bottle was empty, as were their glasses; putting his down he drew her into his arms for a kiss before asking quietly,

"When are you heading back to London?"

Luxuriating in the contact (_God, she loved his mouth_!) she kissed him back.

"Saturday morning. The bosses decreed it probably wouldn't be safe to have us driving that distance after a long day so we're booked in here tomorrow night as well."

Barely lifting his lips from hers (_God, he loved her lips and the way she used them_!) he went on,

"Have you got somewhere to stay?"

"Mmm. I'm booked somewhere for the next week: I'd better check my email again. The boys are heading home on Sunday."

"I don't care about them. Only you." Releasing his hold a little, he sat back, took a deep breath to steady his nerves and said, "Come back to town with me tomorrow. We can cancel your booking for next week once we're there."

Outwardly, she maintained her normal stillness and calm as she contemplated him with those very green eyes. Inside, her heart raced as unexpected joy shot through her. Knowing what it had probably cost him to say it, she smiled and replied, carefully,

"Okay. As long as I won't be treading on any memories."

He gave a short, slightly bitter laugh.

"You won't be. If there's one place in London that does _not _hold any memories of Ruth it's my house."

Her expression didn't change but her immediate thought of _What? How did _that _work?_ must have registered in her eyes because he sighed and pulled her back into his arms.

"I wasn't going to explain any of this yet but I've just realised that I owe it to both of us, and Ruth, to do so because one of the major problems she and I had was that neither of us were very good with saying what we meant. With saying anything, really. And I don't want that to happen with us." Absently kissing the top of her head he went on, "I loved that woman so much but _Christ_ it was hard work. So many issues from her side and a bundle on mine as well..." He went on to explain, briefly, how things had been, her still acceptance making it surprisingly easy. To his even greater surprise, it was a massive relief to finally get it off his chest. He didn't dwell on it for too long; Hope accepted the story as it came although she had a hard time understanding Ruth but then she knew nothing about what might have happened in that woman's life to make her the way she was and certainly knew better than to judge as well as recognising that she was only hearing Harry's side – no doubt Ruth would have had a different view of the story and Hope was well aware that the actual truth would have been found somewhere between the two. She was just so sorry that it seemed to have caused this lovely man years of suffering before the final act in the drama almost destroyed him.

She stayed quiet once he finished, thinking for a moment, then looked up, kissed him tenderly and said, simply,

"Thank you. You didn't have to explain but I appreciate it. So in memory of Ruth we will continue to be forthright. Yes, I will be more than happy to accompany you back to London. You'd better know you'll be putting me up for three weeks, though, not one!"

He looked at her and a slow, sideways smile spread across that mouth she adored as he contemplated her extended presence in his life with absolute delight.

"How's that?"

"I hate coming this far for a short trip so, as I've got about a gazillion weeks of annual leave due, I'm taking a couple of them at the end of the work part of this trip, to have a break. And avoid the rest of summer at home – I may hate the cold but I hate being fried by the sun equally as much."

_Everything was so easy with this woman_. No wonder she was so relaxing to be around...

"All the better, then. I might even surprise everyone and take some of my own gazillion weeks of leave so we can do something or go somewhere together."

"Now you're talking!"

"Mmm, too much. I can think of things I'd rather do." Another long, soft kiss followed; just as she was settling in he abruptly sat up and continued, "Like order dinner. And some more wine!"

"Tease," she accused him, heart still racing. "You'll pay for that later."

"Oh, I _do _hope so!"

She was as good as her word, driving him until they collapsed in a sweating heap. Eventually, as they made themselves more comfortable, Harry asked innocently,

"I just want to clarify: that was my punishment for being a tease, was it?"

"Yup. Serves you right and I hope you suffered."

There was a silence for a second as he considered her remorseless tone.

"I think I had better tease on a regular basis, then."

The last day of the congress was mostly devoted to technological developments, with no major lectures. Interesting stuff but the day was dragging by the mid-morning break. They had managed to spend most of the morning together without interruption; at morning tea Harry went off to get them coffee while Hope finished getting some information off one of the technology providers. She had just finished that when one of her travelling companions bailed her up.

"Hope! Christ, you've been hard to get hold of this week."

"Hey, Ah-Teng. No I haven't, I've been here all the time. What's up?"

The younger man shook his head at her.

"I didn't say you hadn't been here, I said you've been hard to get hold of. You've been conspicuous by your absence after hours and even during the day you're impossible to get at because you're always with that bugger from MI5."

"You mean me?" Harry asked, appearing next to them, somehow balancing coffee and cake for two. "Hello, Ah-Teng. Your coffee, my darling." Handing over her refreshments he very deliberately kissed her; kissing him back, she replied,

"Thank you, sweet."

Ah-Teng had the grace to look slightly embarrassed.

"Yes, Harry, I meant you! Sorry, I didn't realise..." his voice tailed off under the steady gaze of two sets of slightly amused eyes. Once she decided he had squirmed enough Hope said,

"No reason why you should have. What were you after, anyway?"

"Just trying to find out when you wanted to head back tomorrow, that's all."

"Oh, just as well you found me then. I'm going back this afternoon, with Harry, so you two can set off whenever you want and I'll see you once I'm back home."

"Ahh. Okay."

She hitched an eyebrow at him.

"Don't look so surprised. It wouldn't be the first time the Australian security services had ended up in bed with MI5, just perhaps not as literally." Ah-Teng choked on his juice while Harry had to swallow his coffee very quickly before flashing her a brilliant smile. When he finished coughing her young colleague said,

"Alright, that was more information than I really needed so, on that note, I think I'm going to leave now. See you in Canberra and have a good holiday, although I guess you will now!"

They decided to sneak away in the early afternoon. It had stopped snowing over night and the roads were clear so the trip back to London only took a couple of hours, although the distance from the outskirts to his house took almost half that time again, due to the peak hour traffic. It was getting dark by the time they got there so she had no idea where they were, although he assured her they were in Pimlico, not far from Thames House. _Far enough in morning traffic or on afternoons like this one_, had been his wry addendum.

There was nothing to eat in the house so they went out for dinner, returning late and immediately retiring to the bedroom to test his bed.

It didn't squeak either.

The weekend passed all too quickly as they got further acquainted with each other away from work. The weather wasn't conducive to being outside so most of their time was spent indoors, at home or elsewhere, although mostly the former: she found his home to be surprisingly peaceful, a Georgian refuge full of light and air, decorated in subtle colours, comfortable furnishings and a tasteful collection of art, ceramics and glass that had probably been assembled over decades. It was also ridiculously neat and organised (_"easy enough when you're the only one in it_" had been his response) but she put that down, correctly, to his military background, something she had experienced before with Wynne. So she felt surprisingly at home very quickly.

He, in turn, was pleasantly surprised at how right it felt to have her there: unobtrusive, quiet, serene and full of love. He had recognised that on the Sunday morning, when he was in the kitchen putting the kettle on and she was in the sitting room with her nose in the newspaper: he realised the atmosphere of the house had changed subtly, no longer totally silent and a little chilly, he acknowledged it was because he knew she was there, a few feet away, but was amazed at how it suddenly felt warmer and more like a home than it ever had. He remembered Ilya's words on that first time he had visited for a drink: he had long accepted the truth in that part of what the other man had said at the time but now he suddenly realised that their positions had reversed: the Russian was the one who was living in a cold, lonely house (there had been no replacement for Elena – he hadn't said as much but was clearly unwilling to risk getting involved again – and Sasha would be in that high security clinic for a very long time yet), albeit a new one, having been unable to remain in what had been the family home, while his was now alive and almost cosy, in a quiet way.

Hope had smiled gently when he brought the tea tray in; sitting next to her, he removed her glasses, wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, tenderly; she dropped the paper and responded in kind, more than willing to accept any excuse offered to enjoy his mouth on hers.

"Hello, lover! Wasn't expecting that but it was lovely. Any particular reason?"

Still unwilling to admit it to himself yet that, at their advanced ages, he was well on the way to falling head over heels in love he responded with a simple,

"Because you're here. And I'm very glad of that," before capturing her lips with his again, leaving her starry-eyed. He was still finding it a little hard to believe that she wanted him as much as he wanted her, and not just on the physical side, either – he had never had a problem with getting women to come back for more of that – she seemed to want _him, _all of him, just as he was, with all his inadequacies and limitations. Limitations that she didn't seem to see or, if she did, didn't care about, and such a sunny acceptance of all that he was made him happier than he had almost ever been.

Unbidden, Ruth's words, spoken after the disastrous marriage proposal, floated to the surface of his mind: "_...but now, after the choices you've—I can't._" They had hurt him, badly, those words, wounded him to the core in fact, the judgement passed on him and his work at that exact time making him feel like something on the bottom of her shoe. She had tried to mitigate it later, on the rooftop _"—things __**we've**__ seen together, things __**we've**__ done—" _but the damage had been done and they had never really recovered because he had realised then that she would never be able to accept the dark side of their world the way he did, that she saw his acceptance and active use of it as something that was an ineradicable fault in him, something she could never fully get over, never accept, never be truly comfortable with_. _But that was then, in the pre-Estuary world of hopeless yearning; today was a different, more open, accepting and understanding world. Breathing "I could kiss you all day," he pulled her into his embrace again.

One of the first things Hope had done the previous morning was rifle through his music collection, almost as extensive as her own; now, a CD was playing that he hadn't put on for years and the song currently sending its solemn spoken-work lyricism and choral chorus, coloured with distant echoes as wild and untamed as those outer Hebridean shores from which the band sprung, to expand with quiet, cathedral-like intensity into every corner of the room seemed entirely apt. Neither of them spoke Gaelic yet both had, at some time, read the translation, so now subliminally understood and recognised the truth of the words for this moment in their lives...

_Co as an dainig na reultan, thuirt mi_

(So where do the stars come from, I said)

_Co as an dainig grian_

(From where did the sun appear)

_Tha sinn cho leointe fo na ghealach seo_

(We are so wounded below this moon)

_Anam craidhte seachad air ifrinn fheinn_

(souls tortured beyond hell itself)

_Ach tha thusa brosnalchadh nam bliadhnaichean_

(Still you keep bringing inspiration to my years)

_Le saidhbreas seachad air mo dhith_

(with blessings beyond my need)

_Cho gheal ri sneachd gach uile gheamhradh_

(Whiter than the snows of each winter)

_An t-oran gaoil m'fhaosaid chiontach fheinn_

(The song of love, my confession of guilt)

_O luaidh be siod an gradh_

(Oh Love, what power there was in that embrace)

_A dh'fhag mi ceangailte ruit an drasda_

(that has left me in union with you today.)

_Co shaoileadh an rud a dh'fhas_

(Who could ever have foreseen all that has grown)

_Bho phog aon oidhche earraich_

(from a kiss, one spring evening)

'Pog Aon Oidhche Earraich' (A Kiss one Spring Evening). Written by Rory and Calum Macdonald, perfomed by Runrig. Translation from the album liner notes.


	7. Chapter 7

7 **February 2013 – 3 – London – Malcolm **

Monday morning was back to work for both of them. He dropped Hope at her first appointment (the start of two days working with their own national security advisors at Whitehall to put together the framework for a joint task-force relating to their overlapping areas of interest in central and south Asia) before heading back to the Grid, arriving after everyone else for almost the first time in the living memory of his underlings. They all piled into the meeting room after him; only Erin noticed that his tie, this morning, was a subtle, sunny gold. It was soon evident to everyone that the old, almost legendary, Harry was back, from the quick, witty comebacks to the instant comprehension of issues and scalpel-like decisions; by the end of the meeting, those who had been around long enough to remember were washed in relief while anyone newer, including Waleed, were slightly shell-shocked at the re-emergence. Erin and Dimitri both correctly identified the cause of the change, having realised that Hope had been at the congress, but even they were surprised by the scale of it. Unless, of course, the pair had actually progressed beyond friendship...

Harry's phone, which had been surprisingly quiet all day, went off while he was up on the roof terrace after lunch, getting some fresh air and trying to make sense of some insubstantial thoughts that were hovering in the back of his mind like a malevolent cloud, attempting to cast unwelcome shadows. Having not looked at the caller ID before answering, he was surprised to hear Malcolm on the other end. They hadn't spoken since Christmas, although there had been the usual emails; this phone call wasn't long, either – Malcolm wanted to catch up with him some time over the next couple of days. Nothing work related but reasonably urgent anyway. They agreed to meet up at the pub the following afternoon and rang off, leaving Harry to return to his ruminations.

After another quiet night at home with Hope, who was weary after a long day of talking, he had a busy day but managed to slip off mid-afternoon to catch up with his old friend. Malcolm was already at the pub when he arrived and waved at Harry from his table up the back. Picking up a couple of drinks in passing, the latter made his way through the few other people in the bar and joined him, spending the first few minutes in general conversation.

Malcolm had realised immediately that something had changed for his former boss – the man was almost glowing – and was content to sit on his own request for a while as he waited to find out what that change was. When a natural pause fell in the conversation he took a sip of his beer and said quietly,

"You're looking well, Harry. Things have improved for you since we last saw each other?"

That had been six months ago, at Malcolm's mother's funeral. _Just before Hope had first arrived,_ Harry thought, his face softening at the memory. A quick smile flitted over his face.

"Yes, they have."

Putting two and two together to come up with a perfect four, Malcolm continued on, shrewdly,

"You have met someone, perhaps?"

The older man glanced up from contemplating his whiskey and, for the first time in almost two years, Malcolm saw a sparkle, well remembered but long unseen, in those dark depths.

"Yes, I have."

"Is it serious?"

Harry took to contemplating his drink again as he considered his response.

"I believe so. Although it's early days yet."

Another brief silence fell until Malcolm patiently nudged the conversation forward again with a question that was deliberately pertinent.

"Are you going to tell me any more? Such as does she know what you do?"

A wry quirk of the eyebrow showed that his former boss got his point.

"Yes, she knows. She's one of us, Malcolm."

That surprised the younger man slightly. Casting his memory over those he knew that were likely contenders he found he couldn't come up with any. Leaning back and flicking a speck of dust from his immaculately tailored shirt he asked,

"Do I know her?"

Harry shook his head and decided he might as well come out with it so his friend could stop the interrogation and get on with whatever it was that he really wanted to discuss.

"No, I don't think so, although you would have been around when she first visited London 20-odd years ago... She's Australian. Ex-ASIS and ASIO, recruited after completing a doctorate in Chinese language and politics at the ridiculous age of 23—" he suddenly gave an encouraging smile, "you can practice your Mandarin with her! – and is now a national security advisor for the Australian government. We met very briefly many years ago, in Berlin in 1988, London a couple of years later and then were working our own ends of the same operation in Bangkok, were in touch occasionally while she was my opposite over there and then she turned up again last year on a three-month secondment, researching how we do things ahead of being part of this international task force that's being set up." An expression that was somewhere between wonder and disbelief swept across his face, making him look years younger for a fleeting moment. "She exudes such peace, Malcolm. Being around her is like being enveloped by serenity and coolness." Their eyes locked and the disbelief faded a little although something of the wonder remained. "And she knew exactly what I was going through because she's been there as well. It makes for no questioning, no judgement, no compulsive need to know absolutely everything. Then she was at the congress last week and..."

"And now she has made you happy." It was a statement, not a question. Harry inclined his head but said no more although a certain almost unreadable expression – _was it apprehension?_, Malcolm thought – crossed his face, wiping away the remnants of the wonder. Having known the man for over twenty years, the Welshman was adept at interpreting that which most others could not: Harry's real feelings underneath his normally bland expression. After another long silence Malcom added, "What's the matter, my friend? You are clearly happier than I've seen you for years and yet there's something on your mind."

For all that he was actually five years younger than Harry, Malcolm had always seemed older – almost ageless – and part of that was because he was extremely good at seeing straight through subterfuge. Scrubbing at his face Harry, suddenly tired but determined to stick to his policy of being more open, forced himself to finally put into words something of his haunting fog.

"There's nothing specific, Malcolm. We are ridiculously happy together but I don't feel like I deserve it. Her."

Malcolm had thought it might have been something like that. _An imagined ghost of Ruth. _ _That woman had done more lasting damage than anyone had known_. Much though he had liked her, the quiet, insidious harm she had wreaked on his old friend after her tumultuous return had dismayed him and he had only been observing it from a distance. Yes, Harry had played his part and was the first to admit it but from where Malcolm had been standing he was inclined to lay the blame she owned directly at Ruth's door and not deflect it onto the man opposite him, no matter that Harry was inclined to take it all on himself anyway. _Shouldn't have been surprised,_ he mused while fixing the older man with his steady blue-grey eyes, _after her over-reaction to my words, meant as a tease, all those years ago..._ Returning to the present he asked in a voice as firm as his gaze, directly challenging what he knew Harry was thinking,

"And why wouldn't you deserve her? Or happiness?"

Taking another swig of whiskey Harry decided, in deference to Ruth's memory, to talk, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

"With my past, Malcolm? How on earth can I expect anything good to arrive, or last?"

He wasn't about to let his former boss get away with that patently ridiculous remark. He knew Harry had been suffering depression – they all knew that – but unlike most of his other workmates Malcolm knew that the condition well and truly pre-dated Ruth. Malcolm had first become aware of it in 1996, after the death of Archie Hollingshead and his young family had left Harry in the slavering jaws of the black dog for over six months – indeed, he had been fairly certain that the dog had almost claimed Harry – before he had started to see daylight again and since then had noted its return, desguised as bouts of self-destructive, spiralling alcoholism, on numerous occasions, particularly whenever they had lost another member of their small 'family'. And here he was again but this time he seemed to be fighting the opportunity given to him to make the final effort to escape his well of despair. It was doing him nothing but harm to continue with those thoughts. _It was about time someone gently confronted the man about it_. Only feeling slightly guilty about the harsh tone he was about to adopt, Malcolm asked, uncharacteristically almost mocking,

"Because of what you've done, because of your job? Or because of who you are?" He made a show of shaking his head incredulously. "I thought you didn't believe in God, Harry, of any sort, let alone a punitive one set on punishing you for self-perceived infractions of some imaginary codex." Harry winced as the accusation hit home; seeing it, the Welshman decided to ease up a little: he had made his point. "But if you did, I think you would find that the good you have done over the years far outweighs the bad. And you're not a bad man, if that's what you're thinking. You might have had to do some bad things at times but always with the greater good in mind, which doesn't make you personally evil. Anyway, if you're in the mood for metaphorical discussions of crime and punishment, don't you think you have suffered enough?"

The object of the grilling sighed, well aware of the accuracy of his friend's words and the idiocy of his own. He could apply the same withering logic to himself but it didn't stop him _feeling_ the way he did .

"I know. It's stupid. Maybe I'm just scared of repeating past mistakes." Finally straightening up from his slightly hunched position he murmured wearily, "I've actually loved exactly two other women in my entire life, Malcolm: the first one I drove away by being a complete arsehole, and the second... I'm not sure I deserve a third time lucky and, to be honest, I'm terrified of stuffing up again."

_That was honest at least, even if he was still skirting the truth. _As was usual with pubs these days, music was blaring from a television mounted on the wall opposite where they were seated. Both men had mostly tuned it out but the current song, featuring a very young Elton John seated at a white piano without his usual oversized glasses and wearing an understated fur coat, was one that Malcolm, generally quite happy to be ignorant of anything that could be classed as 'popular', actually knew quite well, and until very recently had vehemently loathed because of what it represented. Hearing it again he realised that, although the verses reflected what had happened with his one true love, back when they were very young adults, the chorus might just as well fit Harry's current predicament. The mournful music certainly did.

_It's sad, so sad_

_It's a sad, sad situation_

_And it's getting more and more absurd._

_It's sad, so sad._

_Why can't we talk it over?_

_Always seems to me that 'sorry' seems to be the hardest word.._

_Well, maybe not 'sorry' but self-forgiveness seemed to be the hardest concept for Harry. _The words resonating with what he was thinking, without allowing himself to think twice, Malcolm fixed Harry with a steady look over the rim of his glass and stated calmly, voice betraying not the slightest hint of the nerves at what he was saying.

"You're not scared because you don't repeat mistakes, not that I've ever seen." He swallowed more of his beer. "Are you sure it's not just that you feel guilty? That you are in some way betraying Ruth?"

Another shaft that found its mark, all the more painfully because he had been flitting around the edges of the thought for the past week, reluctant to examine it more closely. He said nothing, just stared at the table top, until Malcolm's soft voice continued remorselessly but with complete empathy,

"She's not here any more, Harry. Whatever faith you may or may not hold, she's gone and is not coming back. And do you really think that Ruth, of all people, would want you to spend the rest of your life grieving for her while turning your back on another chance? If positions were reversed, would you have wanted that for her? Did you want it for her when she was in Cyprus? No, you did not and you would not." He shook his head again, slightly exasperated this time. "Do you remember the poem I read at her funeral?"

_As if he would ever forget._

"Yes. Every word of it."

"So what are the last four lines?"

Harry squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before quoting, equally as quietly,

"'_You can cry and lose yourself,_

_become distraught and turn your back on the world_

_or you can do what I want -_

_smile, wipe away the tears, learn to love again and go on.'_"

"It's what she would want for you, Harry. There's no need for guilt. You've been given another chance at genuine love and that's something we're not likely to get too often at our age. So you should grab it with both hands and run, as Ruth would want you to do. I know I have."

His words made perfect sense and seemed to release the last of the darkness that had been hovering at the edge of the older man's consciousness for the past week. He exhaled in relief and reached for his glass before the import of the rest of the words registered; looking up, eyes wide with a suspicion tempered by incipient delight, he asked,

"What was it you wanted to see me about again?"

Malcolm gave a shy but happy smile, answering with a question of his own.

"What are you doing two weeks on Friday?"

_A couple of days before Hope was due to leave... _Curious, he responded slowly, eyes never leaving the other man's face,

"Nothing that I'm aware of. Why?"

"I'm getting married that afternoon and I need a best man. I would like you to be he."

After a moment of stunned silence a huge grin split Harry's face. Of anything Malcolm could have said, that was the _last _thing he would have expected. An invitation to meet a new lady friend, yes – there had been few of those over the years, Harry was well aware of that – but a wedding invite exceeded everything. Giving a delighted laugh he replied,

"My God! I would be honoured. Congratulations! Who is she?"

"Her name is Angharad and we were an item when we were teenagers—" Elton John was still playing and he smiled internally now that the tune had lost its power to sting with the memory of the way it had ended back then "—and then again in our early twenties, when I joined the Home Office 30-odd years ago. That all ended for reasons we can't even remember now and I never thought I would see her again but then she turned up at Mam's funeral. You met her, briefly." Harry nodded, slowly, the image of a tall, willowy, platinum-haired woman coming into his mind. "She's been in London for the past 20 years but neither of us realised the other was here... Anyway, we reconnected and now we've decided to get married. Because these chances aren't likely to come around again..." They sat, grinning at each other. Harry lifted his glass and clinked it against Malcolm's in a silent toast; the latter finally said, "I will send you the details this afternoon. And bring your lady, I would like to meet her. What is her name, by the way?"

His friend's face softened again.

"Something very appropriate. Her name is Hope."

Harry pondered Malcolm's words as he drove back into town to pick her up and could find no fault with them. He had loved Ruth, heart and soul, but he was starting to wonder if her final words had been right – they had never been meant to be. Looking back, all he could see were the obstacles that had been thrown in their way every single time they had been anywhere near getting close, up to and including the final, unarguable obstacle of her death. Now, almost two years later, here was Hope with her magical ability to heal his heart and not an obstacle in sight and, suddenly, life on this poor, benighted planet didn't seem so bloody pointless after all. At a stand-still for a moment in the peak hour traffic, he became aware that another Runrig song was playing on the radio. He hadn't listened to them for years and now they were turning up everywhere with their damnably beautiful, insightful words.

"...a_nd I wondered and I trembled as you held me so close in your arms_

_with a love that held more learning than I could ever understand." _

That was so true. If he believed in that sort of thing he would say that Hope, like Malcolm, was an ancient soul. Even if you didn't believe it she was still far more aware of that side of life than most and that well and truly included himself. Words in the chorus drew his attention back to the song.

"..._but after all is said and done,_

_that the only thing that ever matters is to love and to be loved." _

The traffic started moving again and he sighed as the refrain was repeated. Exactly what Malcolm had been saying. The message was being hammered home every way he turned so maybe he had better start listening. And act on it.

He was still bubbling with the news when he finally got through the traffic and picked up Hope. She accepted it warmly, despite not knowing the people involved, but it had clearly delighted her chauffeur and anything that made him happy also made her happy. She muttered something about the thought of having to go shopping for a new outfit did not inspire her in the least as she hated clothes shopping with a passion; he suggested the dress she had been wearing at the congress dinner but she just said it was full formal, a bit much for a semi-formal afternoon wedding; he then offered to come along but that was a request she flatly denied, the thought of having a thoroughly bored man traipsing around the shops after her making the prospect even less appealing so, although she appreciated the thought, it was a definite no in response. The ill-disguised look of relief on his face when she said so just proved she was right!

Later that evening they made love with incredible tenderness. He had been very attentive since he had picked her up that afternoon but this ratcheted things up even more. It was as though, for the first time, he was giving all of himself to her, that faint edge that she had never been able to identify (_desperation? uncertainty? guilt? all or none of the above?_) having disappeared at last. She wondered what else he had talked about with his old friend this afternoon... Whatever the cause, she was happy to reciprocate with the result that their union achieved heights that eclipsed all that had gone before.

The following day Hope was due to spend it on the Grid but her arrival was put back by a couple of hours due to an over-run on the previous two day's work. She finally made it at morning tea time, laden with cake as a bribe for the interrogations she was about to inflict on some of them, and was given an extra warm welcome by the Section D staff as a result. Harry still wasn't back from Whitehall himself but that didn't stop any of his personnel from heading for the kitchen for tea or coffee and then for the treats with unseemly alacrity. Dimitri was out and about but Erin, Waleed and Calum were there so they spent a few minutes together catching up on gossip before Calum was called away, carting a tasty souvenir with him. The cakes were disappearing at a rate of knots; snaffling a couple of petits-four for herself, Hope also grabbed the remains of a particularly nice dark chocolate and chilli ganache, murmuring to Erin,

"I'd better keep some of this for the resident chocaholic, otherwise he'll kill me."

The younger woman laughed at her conspiratorial tone.

"He would, too: chocolate's second only to whiskey for our boss!"

They grinned at each other as they enjoyed a shared rememberance of disbelief at the discovery of Harry's well-disguised sweet tooth.

"Yes, I found that out last week at the congress dinner. He actually swapped our deserts when I wasn't looking for a split second because mine was chocolate and his wasn't. By the time I realised what had happened it was too late. He'd make a bloody good sneak thief, that man." Waleed, standing opposite them, had glanced up over the women's shoulders while Hope was speaking and suddenly beamed widely as a voice behind them said,

"Who would make a good sneak thief?"

"You!" both women chorused, unrepentent at being found out, as Harry joined them.

"Are you still traumatised by the dessert swap?" he asked, wrapping his arms around Hope's waist from behind.

"Yes!" she snarled at him companionably.

"You shouldn't be so distractable," was his reasonably-couched response, along with a tender kiss on the lips. Erin found herself blushing slightly at this unprecedented show of affection from her senior officer but allowed herself a tiny smile, happy that her intuition was right; Waleed, startled, didn't know where to look; the others who were around and noticed had responses ranging from stunned to disbelieving. When the pair broke apart, Hope just narrowed her eyes and said,

"Speaking of distraction, you just nicked my last petits-four, didn't you." The only response she got was to see said morsel disappearing. Rolling her eyes at Erin she went on, "Bastard. See what I mean? I saved the ganache for him and that's the thanks I get!"

Before the younger woman could respond Harry fixed her with a somewhat steely gaze.

"You may stop looking at us like that, Ms Watts, as I recall you being the one to set the bar for public displays of affection in the workplace." Flushing scarlet at being reminded of the late evening when, assuming they were alone, she and Dimitri had been sprung in a clinch by not only Harry but the Home Secretary as well, she cast a furtive glance at Waleed only to see that young man's expression change from wide-eyed astonishment to biting his lip to repress his mirth at the revelation. "Before you ask, I had the appropriate paperwork submitted and approved before I returned to work on Monday. I believe in setting a good example for everyone else."

_Another dig at that night._ As he and Towers had continued on their way to Harry's office he had requested that her paperwork be on his desk in the morning; to be fair, he hadn't even looked at it before scrawling his signature on the bottom and had been supportive ever since. She rolled her eyes at him and prodded Waleed in the ribs; Hope, not knowing but working out the general gist of the story, wriggled out of Harry's grasp and said bluntly,

"Enough of that, buster. We've got work to do and you're not getting any ganache until we're finished!" Satisfied with Erin's reaction, Harry was content to abscond to his office leaving his chastened Section Chief to deal with a Senior Analyst who appeared to be about to go into a meltdown if he couldn't laugh soon. After quelling him with her most severe look Erin finally breathed out and said to him, very quietly,

"Just wait until I see Dee tonight. He'll never believe it!" The man attempted a reply but was clearly still trying to not laugh; exasperated, she said, "Oh, get it over with, man. Then you can clean up." As she disappeared to her work station, heels clicking in annoyance, Waleed finally gave vent to an almost soundless guffaw before turning to tidy up, still chuckling quietly.

Half an hour later the pair re-emerged fifteen minutes later, with Harry heading off to yet another meeting while Hope went to work on her other targers, extracting details from some people and running ideas past others. She caught up with Erin before lunch and, once the work component was dealt with, the two women went off to eat, the conversation turning casual. Hope managed to divert Erin's attention elsewhere for most of lunch, mostly by encouraging the younger woman to talk about her daughter interspersed with her own occasional moans about having to shop for an outfit for the wedding, but eventually she could avoid the question no longer. It was surprisingly gentle when it came. A short silence had fallen; Erin reached out to touch the other woman on the hand.

"I'm so happy for you two. He's a changed man." Hope looked at her and responded carefully but with perfect truth,

"I'm a changed woman. We've been good therapy for each other."

The younger woman frowned slightly at Hope's choice of words.

"'Therapy'?"

"He hasn't told you?"

"He hasn't told us anything. All we know is that he loves you and has done for months and that you've saved him from the living hell that he was in. But anything else, no."

Hope quirked a slightly sceptical eyebrow at the response.

"I don't know that I would go that far yet."

The clear grey eyes fixed on her intently.

"I would, although I don't think he's recognised it himself, or perhaps just doesn't _want_ to recognise it yet. I've had the impression for some time that he thinks he doesn't deserve anything good to happen for him but I also know how he's been looking at you since you came back from that week at GCHQ last year. He's got no idea but he gazes at you in exactly the same way that he used to gaze at Ruth only he's been truly happy along with it. A sight none of us here have often seen before; he may have loved Ruth but they were rarely _happy _ together, from all reports."

Hope sighed, determined to not allow anyone to read any more into the situation than there actually was.

"Well, I can make no judgement about the situation with Ruth but maybe there is something to what you say. We share a very particular bond, Harry and I, one that I hope none of the rest of you have to experience. Where he has been for the past couple of years I was in 1999." As she explained, succinctly and in about three sentences, Erin's eyes widened and her face went ashen.

"Oh Jesus, Hope..." She was stuck for words for a moment, staring at her counterpart in disbelief and horror. Shaking her head she said, "I wondered how you had picked up on what was going on so quickly." Resting her chin on her hand she went on, still stunned, "That is either the freakiest coincidence on the planet or it's enough to make me reconsider the existence of God."

"I don't know about God, although at times I wouldn't put it past it being a result of the shades of Wynne and Ruth kicking back together somewhere drinking champagne and trying to help us. The real truth is the freakish coincidence, of course. It's a shit of a thing to bond over, though."

The younger woman was still examining her closely but finally sat back and toyed with her tea cup. "True. But I have to admit that we're all glad you have. We were at our wit's end, with no idea of what to do to help him get through it."

A wry smile greeted her comment.

"Glad to be of service! Although always remember, he's helping me as well, reminding me that there might be more to life than protecting myself from being hurt again. That letting someone in again might be worth the risk."

Erin suddenly grinned and replied cheekily,

"Maybe we should be shopping for a wedding dress for you, then!"

Hope choked on her coffee and gave the younger woman an old-fashioned look.

"Jesus, give us a chance, Erin, we've only been together for a week." _Why on earth did people insist on jumping to conclusions? She wasn't going to guarantee anything past the end of her holiday and yet here were others apparently mapping out her entire life!_

The grin remained unabated although the tone was more serious.

"Well, I wasn't sure – he went down hill so fast after you left last year that others around here surmised you were together then but I wasn't convinced anything had actually happened apart from the development of a friendship and the bond that we could all see was there but no-one knew why."

There was a short silence.

"You surmised correctly. Getting together hadn't occurred to either of us until it actually happened last week and then I'm not sure who was more shocked when it did. Anyway, it has indeed been a good thing, for both of us, albeit occurring so quickly."

"Hardly quickly, really - you've known each other for six months now. That's long enough."

The corner of Hope's mouth twitched as she remembered Harry's comments from earlier.

"Is it? Is that how long it took you and Dimitri?"

Laughing, Erin shook her head.

"No, rather less than that!" She suddenly got more serious. "Anyway, those of us who work closely with Harry are so glad you arrived in his life. He didn't deserve what's happened to him over the past few years. He's such a softie under the hard shell."

The younger woman noted the softening of Hope's face.

"Yes, you're right about that. He's far more fragile that most people would think and far more caring."

A companionable silence fell while they both considered that until Erin went on, "If you do ever get married, let me know: I want to be either your maid of honour or his best man!"

"I shall, but don't hold your breath."

Harry and Hope left reasonably early that afternoon, before the others, and Dimitri arrived back about ten minutes later. Peering into the darkened office, he asked Erin, who had appeared with a glitter of excitement in her eyes,

"Where's the boss?"

"Gone home. With Hope. Hand in hand, I might add." _They had walked to the pods hand in hand; once through the other side Harry had draped his arm around Hope's shoulders while she had wrapped hers around his waist as they disappeared down the corridor. Erin had watched and found herself misty-eyed... _She shut her computer down and grabbed her bag and coat as Calum and Waleed joined them. "We were right in our supposition! Come on, let's go for a drink and I'll fill you in. You won't _believe_ what happened here this morning..."

She said no more until they were settled with their drinks at The George. Dimitri was mildly sceptical at first.

"Are you sure it wasn't just a 'hello' peck?"

Erin snorted and Waleed shook his head over his orange juice.

"Positive. Why don't you show the Admiral, Erin?"

"Alright." She put her drink down. "You're Hope. Stay sitting down so we're a similar height. I'm Harry." She took a few steps back. "Turn your back to me." Her partner obediently turned away from her and she replicated the actions of the morning, if not the words. "He walked up to her, wrapped his arms around her like this—" her arms wrapped tightly around his waist "—and, after a word or two, kissed her like _this_." She reproduced the long, tender embrace, leaving Dimitri's pulse rate somewhat elevated. He coughed to clear his throat.

"Okay. Not just a 'hello' peck." Taking a pull of his beer he shrugged and continued, "Oh well, good on them. It's not like he hasn't earned it. Ruth gave him a hard enough time for long enough." Erin and Calum looked at him, questioning, then glanced at each other before Calum said,

"That's not the impression we got."

Dimitri quirked an eye-brow.

"Believe me, up until he was forced out on gardening leave he was not a happy chappy. When I first joined this Section I actually thought they were already married and rapidly heading for the divorce court, it was that bad. Constantly at each other's throats and, to be blunt, most of it was her – she wasn't exactly nice to him most of the time, mostly in some bitter and twisted mood that she took out on him, whether he'd earned it or not. He didn't seem to have any idea of what to do about it because every time he tried something she'd slap him down or bite his head off yet if he left her alone it was no different. He never seemed to be able to do anything right as far as she was concerned. Lucas – John – tried to explain it once, after a particularly unpleasant episode, but even he didn't really have any idea of what was going on between them, he just said they had some sort of history and it had been a nightmare ever since she had returned. He had his own shit happening at the time, anyway, so he didn't really care..."

Waleed asked the question they were all thinking.

"What, they used to have screaming matches in the office or something?"

"No. More hissing at each other behind closed doors but you could cut the atmosphere with a knife most of the time, which wasn't fun for any of the rest of us. It all came to a head with the Albany fiasco – Harry had saved her life and appeared to have committed treason to do so and the next day, according to Tariq, she said something to him that put him in a foul mood. Later on, just before he went out to meet Lucas, there was something else going on – he made some oblique comment about it being 'his turn' while looking daggers at her and then walked off the Grid in a questionable state of mind to deal with the meeting and Ruth wouldn't let us shadow him, just in case. Tariq reckoned he didn't actually expect Harry to survive because of whatever it was she'd said earlier..."

At the thought of the young techie and his ultimate fate a hard grief transformed his face for a moment before he shook it off and went on,

"He said Ruth went into a melt-down after Harry had left and then she just disappeared for a day or so after we'd had word that he was still alive and Lucas wasn't. We all assumed her vanishing act due to a guilty conscience, although Harry was conspicuous by his absence over most of that time as well but at least we knew where he was. Then he was gone, she was back and suddenly everything was rosy – well, calmer, anyway - when he returned. Which is all you two saw. Presumably they had taken the opportunity to talk and start to sort a few things out. Then the Gavriks turned up and we all know how that went."

There was silence around the table while the others considered what he had said. Those who had known here had been aware of the flashes of the woman's dark side on the Grid but then they all had those and it now seemed Ruth's had been relatively muted, if Dimitri's account was to be believed. Then the way it all ended... Dimitri eventually lifted his glass and said,

"Anyway, here's to Harry and Hope and a happy future for them both!" They all drank then he went on, looking pointedly at his partner, "You'd better be right about all this, Erin, or we're going to end up looking like a right bunch of idiots!"

Erin looked smug.

"I'm right. I had a chat to her at lunch time!"

The week finally drew to a close, much to the relief of the older couple. They were finding themselves increasingly reluctant to spend time apart, even if for work, so the prospect of two solid weeks (Harry had given HR no option but to approve his annual leave at short notice) of doing what they wanted, with no interruptions, was very appealing. Just being able to stay in bed in the morning was considered a promising start by both of them. Not that they always just slept but the opportunity to take as long as they wanted to cuddle or otherwise indulge was fully exploited.

Sunday afternoon saw them escaping to Greenwich, as Hope wanted to see the new facility housing the Cutty Sark; afterwards, as it was a surprisingly balmy, pleasant day, they wandered up to the Observatory. It was getting late so there were few people around and they found a corner to themselves where they could stand, uninterrupted, and take in the view while they talked. The conversation petered out fairly rapidly; Harry moved to stand behind her, wrapping both arms around her waist and resting his cheek against hers, saying conversationally,

"You know, I'm starting to have some very odd ideas."

Her lips twitched.

"Are you? Do I want to know what sort of 'odd' or not?"

"You tell me! Odd in the form of retiring and emigrating. To Canberra."

_It was out now,_ he thought, with an unusual equanimity. For some strange reason he wasn't scared of what her response might be. For her part, Hope just thought _Oh!_ and let a warm glow suffuse through her. Outwardly, she allowed herself to smile a little and replied, somewhat drily and deliberately obtuse,

"That would be nice. You can visit me when you get bored. Which will take about half an hour in that place..."

_That sounded like a "yes"!_ He kissed her ear.

"It can't be that bad."

"Yeah, it can, believe me!"

"Hmmm. I would only visit you once anyway..." Her eyes slid sideways to meet his. "Because once you let me in your front door you wouldn't get me out again."

"That's alright. I could live with that. Especially if you're good with hammers and lawn mowers!" She turned in his arms and cupped his face in her hands, running her thumbs along his cheekbones. "Are you serious?" His eyes definitely were as he answered,

"Yes. I've been looking for an unarguable reason to get out for years and now, impossibly, unaccountably and after having given up on the search, I've found one. If you'll have me, over there on the other side of the planet."

She kissed him.

"Oh, I'll have you. However, maybe you'd better make it a holiday first – take another month or two of those gazillion weeks of leave you're owed – before you make a final decision."

His heart sank a little bit at that. Maybe he had misjudged things. Again. He couldn't help his next words, or their slightly bitter edge.

"Why? In case you change your mind?"

She let out a peal of laughter.

"No, you goose! That's not going to happen – if and when you do set foot inside my door you won't get out again because I won't let you. That job I gave you is a permanent position, if you're interested, you know."

Relief flooded his face but there was still a question in his eyes so she realised she had better jump on the doubt before it went any further.

"I'd better 'fess up, I suppose." She kissed him again and let her arms slide around his neck, one hand tickling the short, golden curls on the back of his head as she explained, slowly and clearly. "You might not have to move yet because I've got another motive for staying here for the next couple of weeks. Apart from a holiday and you."

He quirked an eyebrow when she stopped; a crafty expression crept into her eyes as she continued,

"I've got a couple of institutions trying to poach me from the government so I have interviews this week. One is with an enormous private security services firm who operate internationally and want someone to head up their south-east-Asian operations; the other is to cover the same area of the globe for an independent international research group on terrorism that's being set up in conjunction with some of the top international universities_._ Both positions would be mostly based here so, my sweet, _that's_ why you probably shouldn't retire and emigrate yet. Because, if I get one of these jobs, I will end up back here in a few months anyway and you'd only have to pack up and move again!"

He let out a huge sigh and squeezed her even more tightly.

"Thank god for that, you had me going there for a moment..."

She met his eyes and said, all humour gone from her face, silently cursing whomever or whatever had trained him to expect nothing but rejection in his personal life,

"I would never do that to you, Harry. We've agreed to be honest and up-front and that's how it's going to stay. It's so much easier that way and I've never believed in playing games where the heart is involved. If I get offered one of these jobs I'm going to take it, because I'm fed up with being a tool of the government, and if you want me to stay around then so much the better, it makes the prospect of moving over here for a few years so much more appealing. If I don't, _then _we'll work out what happens next but either way I'll be approaching _us _simply, day to day, no plans, no expectations, no promises and certainly no games."

He nodded in agreement.

"I want you to stay around, regardless," was all he said before kissing her, hard and deep, making her forget everything for a few long, wonderful moments. Starry-eyed again when they broke apart she said,

"Did I say appealing? I meant irresistible if you're going to continue to do that!"

He continued to 'do that' until they had to come up for air again. Clinging to each other, breathless, he finally asked, voice somewhat ragged, while they recovered their equilibrium,

"So which job would you prefer?"

"The private company pays more. But the other one is probably more up my alley. Depends on which one I get offered! If either."

"Both of them would be mad to pass on you..." A sudden, somewhat devious, expression suddenly crossed his face and she asked suspiciously,

"What devilry have you just thought of?"

"Oh, nothing much. Do these organisations have names? And the people you're going to see? I could do a quick, umm, background search, shall we say."

She gave him a level look.

"Of course you can get into your work network remotely, can't you? Won't you get into strife if you get sprung?"

"No. One of the benefits of being the boss."

She sighed and then grinned.

"Well, I've already done the same, as far as I could, but then I don't have access to the MI5 databases..."

Once he was in, it didn't take him long. He already knew some of the names and the searches didn't throw up anything particularly untoward so she would be able to head off to her interviews in the early part of the week with some equanimity.

Late that evening, Harry, uncharacteristically, was still awake after Hope had drifted off, sprawled half over his chest, one arm flung across him and her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, obscuring the rather messy scar from the bullet that had almost taken out the top of his lung on that side. He loved it when she slept like that, safe in the circle of his arms (_now that was a conceit_, he conceded silently; she was an ex-field agent with almost as much experience as him and frighteningly qualified in several forms of martial arts so he doubted if she needed his protection, but he chose to think it might be different on a personal level), although he knew it wouldn't last long before one of them got too uncomfortable and had to move.

Gazing up at the shadowy recesses of the ceiling he allowed his mind to wander, for the first time since they were said, to those few words they had exchanged on the hillside that afternoon. Not exactly a marriage proposal but not far off, it was another case of his subconscious overriding his conscious thoughts. Probably driven by his conversation with Malcolm, he realised it had only been the truth coming out anyway. Like Hope, he wanted a life for himself instead of everything always being subjugated to the needs of the State, and had been wanting it for years. For whatever reasons it was obviously not meant to have been with Ruth, no matter how much they both desired it, but with Hope it was approaching at something like the speed of light. And maybe that wasn't a bad thing: neither of them were getting any younger and, as Malcolm had said, the likelihood of a chance like this – the pair of them so perfectly suited it was uncanny, her coin analogy popping into his head again – ever cropping up again was probably zero so he would just go with it and see where it led. Clearly, his subconscious had it's own ideas on that front anyway... And she had agreed, in her own inimitable way.

Glancing down lovingly at the woman asleep in his arms he kissed her hair, tenderly, and closed his eyes, content to drift off to sleep himself and let the future take care of itself.

1\. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word. Written and performed by Elton John

2\. Remember Me. Written by David Harkins.

3\. Dreamfields. Written by Calum and Rory MacDonald, performed by Runrig


	8. Chapter 8

**Many thanks to all of you who are sticking with both reading and reviewing this.**

8\. **February 2013 – 4 – Rome **

After the interviews, Hope was still leaning towards the think-tank but it was out of her hands – both had said that they still had one or two others to talk to so they wouldn't be getting back to anyone for another few weeks. So, when Harry had told her to pack her bag for a quick trip away and presented her with bookings to Rome, she had been more than delighted to comply. He had spent some considerable time deciding where to go for their short break and had actually thought about Paris for about three seconds before dismissing it – too many actual (a certain error of judgement called Juliet) and potential (plans never fulfilled with Ruth) memories, although it was the latter that was the greatest disincentive. Other places came to mind briefly and were also dismissed for varying other reasons until he suddenly remembered that she had mentioned, during some long distant discussion during her visit last year, having a fascination with things ancient Roman. Once that memory was back in place the decision on a holiday destination was easy and he'd organised it in the space of the hour or so that she was in her second interview.

He didn't tell her where they were staying before they left and continued to keep her in the metaphorical dark after they arrived at 11.00am, enjoying leading her on a quiet adventure on the train and metro until they arrived at Spagna then continuing on foot to their accommodation not far from the Spanish Steps. The "accommodation" turned out to be their own self-contained single-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a small building with spectacular views. Inside was all understated cream and white decor with marble floors and gauzy curtains filtering the light; outside was a split-level terrace with amazing scenery for a full 360 degrees around the building. Hope twirled around to take in the view before flinging her arms around Harry, squeezing him tight and planting a long kiss on his lips.

"This is _stunning_! How did you find it?"

He grinned.

"Five minutes on the internet!" Letting her go he picked up their two small bags – she was a woman after his own heart in more ways than one, having proven to be an expert at travelling light – and dropped them in the bedroom, re-emerging to add, "We had better go out and stock up the fridge before we get side-tracked by that bed and thoughts of a siesta."

They headed out shortly thereafter to scope out the neighbourhood and start having a look around. To her suprise and relief it turned out he could speak reasonable, if a bit rusty, pidgin-Italian; wandering along the street later in the afternoon, polishing off a lemon gelato, she said,

"I knew you could speak German but I wasn't expecting Italian. Handy! What else?"

He licked a drip of his own chocolate gelato from the side of the cone before replying with an airy,

"Not much. I'm hardly a polyglot. French, Spanish, Hebrew after a fashion, Russian and a bit of Arabic. That's all."

She rolled her eyes.

"'That's all'? Shyte! Seven languages – eight if you count English. Puts me to shame..."

"Oh, there are people around who manage a lot more than that. What else do you speak apart from Mandarin and, if I recall correctly, Thai?"

"Nothing useful over here unless you fancy dim sum or something for dinner. We don't bother much with the European languages for obvious reasons so I'm restricted to Malaysian, Indonesian, Korean and Cantonese as well as Mandarin, I'm afraid. I picked up Portuguese in Timor but have long forgotten most of it and can still just about do the very basics in Thai if I absolutely have to. I just try to not have to!"

Harry nearly choked on the remains of his gelato. He'd tried Mandarin, once, and gave it away immediately as being far too alien. Even Ruth had never managed to come to terms with that language at anything more than a basic level although Malcolm, that fluent Welsh speaker, _was_ equally as fluent in Mandarin. And here was Hope adding four more into the mix although this was the first time that she had directly mentioned that she had ever been to Timor. He wondered if it had anything to do with Wynne.

"Mandarin _and_ Cantonese?" he asked, incredulously.

It was her turn to grin at him.

"And the Malay languages, don't forget. Plus the Korean, if you want to impress people! I don't really count the Thai any more. There used to be a bit of conversational Hakka and Taiwanese Min in there as well but there's not much left, I have a hard enough time keeping up with the other two, despite the doctorate being in Chinese studies."

Harry just shook his head.

"Jesus Christ!"

She winked roguishly at him as they came to a stop at a pedestrian crossing, waiting their moment to take their lives in their hands and step out into the traffic..

"Time to let you in on a secret: it wasn't as hard as it sounds, you know. In fact, the whole doctorate was a bit of a lazy way to get qualified for me."

Frowning slightly at the crazed traffic he asked, mildly caustic,

"Really? Why, are you about to tell me one of your parents is Chinese?"

She huffed a laugh his direction.

"I wish. I would be a beautiful Eurasian then, which I clearly am not! Close in a way, though. Just after I was born my parents moved to the very small town where I grew up; dad's petrol station and workshop was next door to the local Chinese restaurant and the owners had kids about the same age as we all were so the two families, both outsiders of a sort in that slightly xenophobic tiny society, made friends. As a result I spent more time with them than at home – Pearl is still my best friend and our parents remained close forever – so I picked up the languages and culture from a very early age. Both parents were Australian but the mother's parents were straight out from the old country, having escaped at the end of the war before Mao took over and Grandma Hu used to babysit me all the time as mum was always busy in the petrol station all day. Long story short, I already knew the language and culture long before I decided to go to uni."

"Cheat!" was his tart rejoinder as he grabbed her hand and took their chance to boldly move into the traffic stream, vehicles barely slowing to swerve around them.

"You've got it, babe!"

They spent a couple of days doing the better known sites and he had been amazed at her encyclopaedic knowledge of the Roman war machine and the Flavian and post-Flavian era of the city – it was an unexpected passion from someone whose major interest in her professional life was Chinese culture and politics. Listening to her rattling on about the Judaean wars whilst they were standing in front of the Arch of Titus at the entry to the Forum, he was gazing at her quizzically when she caught the expression and suddenly stopped, looking a little sheepish.

"Sorry, I'm droning on again, aren't I? Just tell me to shut up if I'm getting boring. I tend to forget not everyone is obsessed with the Flavians."

He broke into a smile and shook his head at her.

"You're not boring me, I'm quite enjoying it. If anything, I was just wondering if I'm fated to end up with someone who has a private passion for some aspect of history. Jane's real interest was mediaeval England and Europe; Ruth adored the ancient Persians and Greeks; and now you come out with this previously unknown obsession with ancient Rome."

She gave him a demure look from through her eyelashes and murmured,

"Well, maybe you're actually one of those rare, strange and mythical beasts: a man who genuinely appreciates women with brains!"

He laughed at that.

"That is one way of putting a positive spin on it, anyway." Reaching out to draw her close, draping an arm around her shoulders, he added, "Now, Laozi and Sun Tzu I would have expected from you, but not Rome, so how exactly did _that _come about?"

She grinned back at him.

"I love Laozi and Sun Tzu, especially reading them in the original text but the Rome connection dates back to when I was a kid, hanging around next door, when I first heard the stories from Grandma Hu about the missing legions of Marcus Crassus ending up in western China as mercenaries and later settling there in Gansu province. That fascinated me as much as all the other tales she told and I finally got around to looking into it, and Rome, when I went to uni. If that story isn't enough to get you salivating then I don't know what is: the two great military powers of the day..." she was off again, her enthusiasm infectious, and he went back to smiling gently and absorbing all of it, quietly delighted in her pleasure in the subject.

They ended up in the Markets of Trajan on the Friday afternoon. The Forum over the road was still packed with thronging tourists but here, among the soaring colonnades of multi-storey shops in the ancient, semi-circular market buildings they were almost alone, apart from the site guards and a lot of lovely, half-feral cats. They were up on the second storey of the main building, gazing out over the remains of the plaza and quietly admiring Trajan's Column from one of the open arches in the arcade when Harry said, _apropos_ of the column and the Arch of Titus that they had admired before,

"It must have been nice to have been appreciated for your work instead of being chewed up and spat out once your usefulness is deemed over..." Quietly wistful though the words were, there was a distinctly bitter edge to them. Guessing, correctly, that he was referring to the enquiry, she let silence fall for a moment before reaching out to take his hand in hers. Lacing her fingers through his she asked, equally quietly,

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He sighed.

"Not really but you should probably know. In fact, you should probably know everything now, before we go on much longer..." So he told her. Succinctly and leaving out nothing, not just about the enquiry and its preceding and subsequent events but everything back to his time in Northern Ireland in the 1970's, the reasons for the destruction of his marriage – never planned and bitterly regretted – the full details of the entanglement for the Gavriks and the lie he had unknowingly lived with for 30 years and even the disaster that was Operation Omega, probably one of the lowest points of his life.

She listened, interested but unsurprised by anything he revealed, although her heart bled for the pain that the lie of paternity had inflicted on him. It was all par for the course in their line of work, really, and she wasn't about to make any judgements on the errors of his private life, although the mention of woman named Arabella Charlton who had apparently been something of a friend-with-benefits for around fifteen years had made her eyebrow quirk until he had told her, bluntly, that he hadn't seen Belle for years and didn't expect to again as she was now permanently based in the US. It didn't matter – she was hardly lily-white in that department, either, having made a couple of spectacular mistakes both before and after Wynne, but at least it seemed he had learned his lesson, in the most painful way possible, by the end of the eighties and appeared to have done his best to atone ever since, with Belle being a facet of that.

He had disengaged their hands at one point, when talking about the black op that had gone terribly wrong in Berlin, scrubbing at his face in his characteristic move of distress before taking a few steps away to regain a little composure and doggedly continue on. She let him have his space and eventually he came to an end of his summary, leaning on the brick balustrade, head down, staring at the patchy marble paving of the plaza below them waiting for the inevitable reaction and, after the better part of a decade of being conditioned to rejection, wondering if this was where it was all going to go pear-shaped.

In that frame of mind he would never have been able to guess what was in her thoughts. The work details were water off a duck's back but the thing that had really hit home was the scale of the losses he had suffered over his adult life, starting with his mother when he was all of twenty years old. That in itself was probably the most life-changing thing he had ever really been through. Gazing at him, tensed and appearing for all the world as though he was waiting for a blow of some sort, all she could feel was an empathy and compassion as deep as the ocean. The poor, poor bastard. How had he survived all that and not gone insane? That had to be a measure of the essential man: despite taking hits that would destroy most others, he was still in touch with life and still capable of caring for others more deeply than he cared for himself.

When he didn't move after a minute or so she walked over, wrapped her arms around him from behind and kissed him on the corner of his jaw, saying nothing. She could feel the tension in his body and continued to hold him, resting her cheek against his, until he was ready to talk again. When he did, it was one simple word, said with some obvious dread,

"So?"

She kissed him again, on the cheek.

"So, what?"

He took a breath.

"So, are you disappointed? Disgusted? Horrified? Wondering whether you still want to be involved now you know the worst?"

She wondered what else had happened in his past – or, more acutely, just what hell Ruth had put him through on the same subject - to lead to that question but merely shook her head, her hair softly tickling his cheek, and replied, unknowingly echoing Malcolm's words,

"For what? Doing your job? And doing it as well as possible under the given conditions?" She turned him gently in her embrace. "You may have been a bit of an arse in your private life but you appear to have worked out the price to be paid for that long since so I really can't see what problem you think there is. Anyway, I've got no intention of losing access to this mouth and the wonderful, truly gentle man who comes with it, for something as piddling as that." She smiled crookedly. "So you'll have to try harder than that if you want to get rid of me."

Acceptance was the last thing he had expected. Jane had almost walked out on him the evening of their wedding after he had told her, stupidly just before they cut the cake, the truth about his work; it had taken Ruth years to acknowledge the darker side of the job and he had never been convinced that she had really accepted its necessity, let alone approved of it or what he had done in the name of it. Having finally been on the receiving end when Elena's thirty years of lies came out, he now understood their reactions perfectly. Yet here was Hope taking it on board with equanimity, the revelations apparently making no difference to her whatsoever. He had been expecting something negative but she was just smiling at him, gently, with nothing but warmth and understanding in her eyes.

"I don't want to get rid of you. But I don't understand why you don't want to get rid of me. Everyone else has."

_Such a sad response. _She shook her head, slowly, and took a step back to consider him, still with her hands on his waist.

"Well, they may have been idiots but I'm not. There's no reason for me to walk away, Harry. Two sides of the same coin, remember? I've known your reputation as a hard case for years but all I'm seeing in front of me is a good man who's spent his entire life doing his crappy job extremely well and for zero recognition or reward. Yes, there have been mistakes but every single person on the planet has made those – I certainly have - sometimes with consequences as bad or worse than yours, but the thing that stands out to me is that there is a deep streak of honour in this particular hard man that has never allowed you to cross your own personal Rubicon. And that is something to be admired, not decried, my love, because it shows incredible strength, honour and integrity, although in today's society those concepts are things most people don't understand."

The last time he had heard sentiments like that was from Elena but with the implication that they showed weakness, not strength, as Hope was clearly saying. He closed his eyes as they filled momentarily with tears and all the tension drained away. He was starting to think they were closer to being the same side of the coin, rather than both sides of it... Still with his eyes closed he reached for her, burying his face in the soft hollow of her neck as she stroked his back gently, willing him to let it all go. Finally he lifted his face, eyes open again, and kissed her, softly, one hand reaching up to caress her cheek and then ran his fingers through her hair. When they broke apart he said softly,

"I don't deserve you."

Flashing a sudden grin she replied,

"Yes you do!" before the smile faded. Giving him that steady look she went on, "You know, you're so much like Wynne sometimes. He also had too much of a conscience and the job was starting to burden him, to the extent that he had applied to move out of field operations before that last trip to Timor... On that subject, and if this is full disclosure time, then I'd better let you in on my own murk. It might help you see why I understand you so very well. And I _do_ understand you, Harry, all of you, not just our particular bond, don't ever doubt that. It's not just about Wynne and Ruth." So she told him. Equally as succinctly and leaving nothing out, it was a remarkably similar tale, if not quite so voluminous in scope and without the military background, although she left the two worst confessions until last.

"You remember the Bali bombings of October 2002?"

He wasn't likely to forget it, coming so soon after New York and presaging as it did both Madrid and London. "Yes. That's when we all first realised this was an international issue and that September 11 wasn't going to be an isolated event."

"Well, in a way I feel at least partly responsible for that atrocity, as though I have the blood of 202 people on my hands because I may have been able to stop it and what followed – twice - long before either it or 9/11 happened."

That was a bouncer if ever he'd faced one. Trying to make the connections and failing his response was a single puzzled word.

"How?"

She sighed and partially released him from her embrace, feeling the old, familiar creeping shame as she explained.

"I had good evidence by the end of 1993 that Muklas, his brothers and Noor Din Top were planning attacks targetting Westerners and that they were getting money from some Saudi sheikh called Usama Bin Laden. They were starting to recruit through their school and were involved with Abu Bakar Bashir in the early days of Jemaah Islamiyah. This was in the first half of the 1990s, when I was constantly slipping in and out of Indonesia and, occasionally, Timor after the 1991 massacre, keeping an eye on what the bloody Indo's were up to." Her face creased in despair for a moment. "I had the information then, Harry, and I didn't do anything about it because I misjudged them, didn't consider them a serious threat. The evidence was plenty strong enough that we could have done something – even if it meant taking them out – but we didn't because I stuffed up in my assessments. Then and later. Especially later."

He honestly couldn't see why she was taking on so much blame. So far all that it had been was something familiar to anyone working in their field: a simple failure to act because of an erroneous but perfectly understandable conclusion. It was his turn to shrug and reassure.

"It's not your fault, love. If it hadn't been that particular group of people it would have been another, you know that. And we were all guilty, at that point in history, of underestimating the potentialities of radical Islam."

Sighing again she shook her head, releasing him and clenching her fists in frustration at her unprofessionalism during that period. Turning away to stare out towards the ruins of the Forum towering over the road she continued, as doggedly determined as he had been earlier.

"I guessed wrong early because they were still small as an organisation and, as you said, Islamist terrorism wasn't even a blip on the chart those days. But later, in late 2000? You know why I misjudged them then, despite having come across them again and realising how much they had grown and how much more serious it all was, and even having a hint of where they were going to target?"

She wasn't looking at him but was staring up at the sky, dusty in the late afternoon light, but he recognised that the question was largely hypothetical anyway – she was talking to herself, the pigeons winging across the top of the forum and the two slightly scruffy tortoiseshell cats basking in the golden light on the broken paving below her as much as she was to him. In any case she answered the question as soon as it was asked.

"Because at the time I was too focussed on my other, dirtiest, little secret. I'd managed to get myself seconded to East Timor, under the auspices of the UN, earlier in the year. It was a black op, of course, keeping an eye on what was going on again and trying to counter or stop the Indonesians from their nasty little games of stirring up trouble from over the border in West Timor, so I was in and out of Indo and Timor for months. I had the background, you see. I was doing my job but I was really there for another reason, which I'm sure you can guess."

"Wynne," he said quietly.

"Yes."

He thought for a moment.

"I presume that part of the op was _not_ officially sanctioned?"

She laughed, short and sharp.

"Hardly. Although my boss knew what I was likely to do, given the remotest opportunity, and didn't discourage it."

He let it ride for a minute before asking, mildly,

"And did you?"

Echoing his movement of earlier she dropped her head to stare at the plaza, watching the shadows stretch ever further towards the arches opposite them. The cats, spotting a careless pigeon landing not far away, proved they weren't snoozing at all, snapping from indolence into poised hunters in a moment. _A bit like us when we're out on a job_, she thought inconsequentially, _ready to transform from silent watcher to silent killer at a moment's notice._

"Yes, Harry. I found my former asset and I sent him back to his maker. Bare-handed. I wanted it to be personal."

The act didn't surprise him. He knew how physically strong she was just as he knew how very easy it was to kill if you knew how to do it, which she most certainly did. And it was only what he had done, for Ruth, Ros and others... One thing he understood perfectly was revenge, and that it was indeed best taken stone cold. The next question surprised her a little, both in the words and the mild tone, although it probably shouldn't have.

"He knew it was you?"

"Oh yes. I had spent the previous day with my other asset, visiting the places where Wynne had been captured, tortured and buried, so I was even more determined in my resolve by the time he took me to where the bastard had been hiding. I told Jose to go and help his family pack – we moved them to Darwin for their own safety – then made sure that the other saw my face as I broke his neck. At least it was quick for the little shit, unlike for Wynne."

"Good. It is fitting that he knew."

Like him, she waited for more and, when it wasn't forthcoming, risked raising her eyes to look at him.

"Is that all?" He nodded, smiling as gently as she had. "Even though I was so focussed on personal vengeance that I missed the other and look at what happened as a result. Competely unprofessional, if nothing else."

It was clearly time to remind her of how they started the conversation.

"I can't believe you've already forgotten what I just told you: I'm hardly a shining light on that front – you've taken revenge once; I've done it more than that, although I prefer to call it justice and joe public, who know nothing of these things, would call us both murderers."

Her slightly stricken expression didn't change so he ventured a small, encouraging smile.

"It doesn't actually sound like you missed the one because of the other, it was just a normal operational decision and you called it wrong, that's all. What did you say earlier about everyone making mistakes? And that's if you even consider it a wrong call. They were obviously not a clear and present danger the first time around, if you want to use an expression Jim was fond of, because they didn't act for another nine or ten years and even later it was still two years before anything happened."

He was going through the same arguments she had used on herself since October 2002 and there was some comfort in that, although it didn't assuage the sense of responsibility but then nothing ever would. They both knew that. His mellifluous voice was continuing on, pleasing to the ear and persuasively reiterating what she had concluded long since.

"Even if you had called it right, getting the Indonesian security services to do something about it would have been almost impossible, would it not? In any case, by that stage JI were too big and well organised to be stopped by a black op taking out their leaders. Just think about that. Most of the time we get it right but, occasionally, we don't, for whatever reason. There really is no such thing as perfection." He held out his arms and she came to him, her turn to be wrapped in a loving, forgiving embrace. "If there were ever two people who were meant to be together it looks like it's us. So now we know the darkness, let's put it behind us and concentrate on the light." He felt her relax; lifting her face she gave him a rather sideways smile and said,

"You're so good at putting things right for everyone else, Harry. You really need to extend the same comfort to yourself."

He nodded.

"Perhaps." An arched eyebrow questioned him so he modified his response. "Yes, Miss."

The eyebrow dropped and she pulled his face to her for a resounding kiss.

"There is _definitely_ no way I will willingly give up access to these lips!" He captured her fingertips between those lips, kissing each finger individually, before answering,

"You'll never have to." He took the hand in his and kissed it. "Come on. Let's go home."

The talk of old battles was left behind as they elected to walk back to the apartment through the slowly cooling streets and alleys of the late afternoon but a short-cut through a laneway they had used before brought a new, short-lived conflict to shatter their peace. Two young punks materialised in front of them, brandishing flick knives. The one closest to Hope made a move to grab her but never completed it; momentarily distracted by the gentle, almost understanding smile on her face he didn't see the vicious kick that permanently ripped apart his knee joint and dropped him to the ground, squealing in breathless agony. At the same time his accomplice had about the same chance of avoiding Harry who, suddenly flashing into a white-hot fury, contemptuously brushed aside the hand holding the knife while his right fist connected with a power something akin to a pile-driver, breaking the would-be assailant's jaw and sending him flying backwards to hit the deck, unconscious.

Hope looked down at the pair, heart pounding from the adrenaline, muttered a contemptuous,

"Morons," and stepped over them. Harry, briefly incandescent with rage at seeing Hope threatened in a manner similar to what had happened to Ruth but infinitely relieved that this time he hadn't been kept awake, kidnapped, beaten and psychologically tortured over the previous thirty-odd hours so his reaction times were normal, said something significantly worse before taking a very deep breath to calm himself down and joining her. She noticed he was trembling slightly when she took his hand and looked at him, questioningly, but he just shook his head, said,

"Sudden flash-back," and guided her away at a steady walk without a backwards glance. Hope's attacker was still wailing and likely starting to attract attention; she grumbled,

"I should have kicked him in the head as well to shut him up, people are probably starting to look..."

He appreciated the thought and in different circumstances would have done exactly that himself but not this time.

"Tempting, but no, we'll just keep walking. No-one's going to believe that an innocuous looking, inoffensive, middle aged couple like us did that to a pair of would-be muggers." He draped an arm around her shoulders; she wrapped hers around his waist and they exited the other end of the alley just as doors and windows were starting to open.

"Impressively quick reaction, by the way!"

She looked up at him and grinned.

"Same to you! Nice right hook."

"Mmmm." He flexed the fingers on that hand and said, ruefully, "The speed hasn't slowed much but I'd clearly better get back into practice judging by the way my knuckles feel."

The adrenaline had mostly worn off by the time they got back to their apartment. Flopping onto the comfortably squishy, white sofa they looked at each other and he asked,

"Do you still want to go out for dinner tonight?"

She shook her head, weary, and snuggled into his side.

"No. We've got wine and edibles enough in the kitchen so let's stay in. Especially after that: I still need to simmer down."

"So do I," was the heart-felt response as he dropped a kiss on her temple.

Later, gathering together the wine, cheese, bread, olives, salami and tomato, they decamped to their roof-top terrace, spending a quiet hour or so listening to the sounds of a lively evening wafting up from below and watching clouds loom ever higher to obscure the few stars that had been visible. The temperature stayed relatively warm as a result, making the evening surprisingly sultry for the time of year so it was easy to stay out, swapping outrageous stories from their past and gradually winding down. One of Hope's stories had actually been Wynne's, a description of an operation that had gone wrong in the most hilarious of ways; although he got mentioned often enough, Harry realised that she had never actually said much about Wynne as a person so, somewhat curious and after her passing comment earlier in the day, he reached for her hand, kissed it and asked,

"What was he like? Wynne, I mean."

Hope looked at him, brow slightly creased at a question that had appeared out of the blue.

"Why?"

He shrugged.

"Just curious, especially after what you said earlier about my reminding you of him in some ways. I realised you'd never actually described him so I've got no picture in my head whereas you have at least seen the photos of Ruth."

That was true. He only had a couple of them and they were stored inside a copy of Ovid that he had once given her but he had been very open about sharing them so she realised it was probably about time she returned the favour, although she didn't have a photo on her.

"Oh." It was her turn to shrug and then produce a slightly evil grin. "Well, apart from both being blokes you're nothing alike physically! He was 6'4" tall, had very dark hair, very blue eyes and was built like a brick shithouse, every ounce of it muscle." As expected, she caught the disconcerted reaction as he inevitably compared himself to the man in her description and found himself apparently wanting; mitigating the evil grin into something more gentle and warm she explained. "He was ex-SAS, had served in the first Gulf War and kept up the training when he moved first to military intelligence and then ASIS. However, _otherwise_ you two are surprisingly – or maybe not – alike behind your public personas: both quiet, gentle, passionate, fiercely intelligent, devoted, capable of being as hard as nails yet with too much of a conscience and deeply honourable, in the most old-fashioned of ways. And then there is that very specific sense of humour which seems to come with the job..." She twined her fingers through his, suddenly looking humble. "I'm not sure what else to say, except I can't believe I've been lucky enough to have, firstly, found someone like that twice and, secondly, that they've both been interested in me. That's the real miracle. I'm nothing special, after all."

He hadn't been expecting that sort of eulogy and it took him completely by surprise, not least because no-one had ever included him in that type of description before. There had been plenty of others, mostly negative, but it was a strange feeling hearing something that was, well, _nice_... Leaning over to kiss her he said,

"I beg to disagree on that last point. Wynne and I obviously both realised you are _very_ special. Quite unlike any other woman I've ever known, in fact, and I believe he thought the same which is why we have both grabbed you when we had the opportunity."

She smiled wryly.

"Yes and you're both big old softies under the heavily armoured exterior as well!"

They continued smiling at each other for a moment, hardly noticing that the wind was starting to pick up and blow stray leaves around their feet, when he squeezed her fingers gently and asked, his smile fading slightly,

"Were you very angry with him?"

She knew where that was coming from and in a strange way was glad to hear it because it meant he was feeling secure enough to start articulating some of the more uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that came with their sort of loss. Her reply was questions of her own, couched to see how deeply he had been thinking about it as well as giving an indication of her actual answer.

"For what? Dying, or dying the way he did?"

That shook him but also gave him the confidence to respond truthfully.

"Either. Both."

_Good. _He _was _ready to face the discussion, one that was likely to cause some raw wounds to bleed again or, perhaps more correctly, painfully lance a few excrutiating boils. She took a breath before answering carefully, truthfully,

"Oh shit, _yes_. For both. I was incandescent with rage for a long time, first at him dying and leaving me behind just when we'd found each other and then also for the fact that he had allowed himself to be pressured into going back one last time, when his superiors knew he didn't want to and had applied for a transfer out..." She grimaced momentarily as the memory of that fury washed over her. "It took a long time to admit to myself that I was angry and even longer to understand that it was _okay_ to be angry. Only then could I start to deal with it by forgiving both myself and him." Her both smile was both sudden and grim. "Although I still haven't quite managed to forgive his bosses."

There was a film of tears in his eyes as he gazed at her, wondering how she could ever think she was ordinary, and finally admitted, not much above a whisper,

"So was I. I was _so _furious with Ruth, once the first shock was over. Yet again she hadn't listened to me and yet again she had put herself in danger when she didn't need to and then promptly died on me, just as we had decided to make a future together. And I was so bloody exhausted by then that I was a split second too slow to stop it. I still don't quite understand _how_ it happened – I couldn't see and no-one's ever been able to explain it to me, it looked for all the world as though she just stepped forward and into the way – all I know is that Sasha was after me, not her, and the actual outcome wasn't his intent at all. But she still died. Like Wynne, essentially for nothing, just the wrong place and the wrong time."

His hands were gripping hers tightly, almost painfully, but she was hardly aware of it, totally focussed on the intensity of his words and the feelings behind them. What he was saying was hard, so hard, but was just as intensely cathartic. However, she knew what else would be rattling around in his brain, something that would be almost as hard to admit. After a few seconds silence she added, equally as quietly, her words really hitting home,

"And then there's the guilt and self-loathing for feeling the anger to deal with as well. To say nothing of the guilt surrounding the circumstances. I ended up needing a psychologist for a while to sort through it all."

The look of shocked recognition that he cast her spoke volumes; she would have said more but the weather decided that was enough for one evening and the storm finally broke with a massive lightning strike followed instantaneously by earth-shattering thunder, wind and torrential rain which sent them scurrying back inside, too late to avoid being drenched. Both tired now that the adrenaline had completely gone and privately drained by their conversation, they went to bed, curling up together and silently listening to the steady drone of the rain until it lulled them to sleep. There would be plenty of other occasions for them to continue the discussion, when he was ready.

The weather had cleared when Hope woke up at dawn. Harry was sprawled on his back, only partly covered by the sheet and breathing steadily, with one hand unconsciously holding hers. She gazed at him as the early morning light gilded his skin, partly disguising the scars, fair hair ruffled into the mass of untidy half-curls that were the shortened remnants of those riotous Berlin ringlets, darker gold stubble shadowing his jawline and cheeks, and wondered how such a quiet, gentle, surprisingly funny and extremely loving man had ended up in this unmitigated hell of a job. How either of them had, come to think of it. They could have – might have, for all she knew – killed that pair of punks yesterday and that, coming after the conversation in the ancient shopping arcade, had rattled her more than she had let on. By the same token she was so glad now that they had found each other.

She had given up on relationships years ago because it was all too hard, especially with anyone not in the services, but with Harry they had each found someone they would never have to lie to about anything, ever. If nothing came of either of these current jobs, she suddenly decided, she would probably resign anyway, when he retired, and they could try to find other work elsewhere. Or see how their finances were and leave the world behind entirely to become wandering shades, blown whichever way the winds chose with, as she had said on that day in Greenwich, no particular plans or expectations and definitely no promises. While they had been out yesterday they had taken brunch in a small _ristorante_ that had been playing songs from the 1980s, one of which had been a favourite of hers that she would never have expected to hear in that setting. It had turned into something of an ear-worm for the rest of the day and was still echoing in the recesses of her mind this morning when she realised it was rather appropriate to her thoughts – certainly in relation to trying to work out this strange, new personal world of theirs – in its ambiguous way...

…_Stars die in the silence of Arabian nights.  
Wind washes the seasons in these days of a golden age.  
Life in your new world turning round and round.  
Making some sense where there's no sense at all.  
No promises but if you should fall,  
I could give you more than just the shape of things.  
Break every word, begin it all again.  
Your name on a white sheet, pure lace shot with passion.  
But as love lies bleeding in your hands Heaven sends you  
No promises of Arabian nights.  
No white waves on an ocean, no gems from a golden age.  
Life in your new world turning round and round  
So make some sense where there's no sense at all.  
I give you no promises but if you should fall…  
_

He stirred, as though aware of her gaze on him, turned his head and opened his eyes, the light this morning accentuating their green and gold flecks. Smiling lazily he rolled onto his side and reached for her.

"Good morning, beautiful."

"Good morning, gorgeous."

Their usual half-facetious morning banter meant they were back on an even keel. He buried his face in her neck and asked, barely audible,

"What are we doing today?"

"Staying in bed until a reasonable hour, then going to Tivoli!"

"Ahhh, that's right." Nuzzling her throat he continued, "Well, if we're staying in bed for the moment we might as well make use of being awake..."

They ended up hiring a car for the weekend, spending Saturday at Tivoli and making a longer day of it on the Sunday by visiting both Pompei and Sorrento. To her delight he proved to be as much of a demon behind the wheel as the locals, giving as good as he got in the battle to turn one lane into three and very obviously enjoying every minute of it, blasting the horn and cutting corners with the best of them. A more intellectual pleasure was to be had as they wandered the lanes, gardens and ruins of their destinations although Harry took mental notes on some of the illustrations found in certain buildings in Pompei and insisted on trying them out when they got home – only to find that she had been making notes of her own.

The rest of the trip passed too quickly and, almost before they could blink, they were back on the plane and headed home on the following Wednesday. Malcolm's wedding was on Friday and then Hope was due to fly out late on Saturday night so they spent as much of their remaining time as possible closeted together, just enjoying each other's company in such simple pastimes as reading, listening to music or going for a walk by the river. Neither wanted to consider the time beyond her departure: it was the future and it could look after itself.

No Promises. Written by Iva Davies, performed by Icehouse.


	9. Chapter 9

9\. **February 2013 – 5 – London **

The day of the wedding dawned clear and cool and even with some promise of early Spring warmth for the afternoon. Before they knew it the time had arrived to get ready so Hope decamped to the main bathroom, leaving Harry in peace in the en-suite to prepare for his important supporting role. The better part of an hour passed before they met up again and both found their breath catching in their throat. If anything, she though, he looked even more spectacular than he had at the congress dinner, dressed in an exquisitely tailored, understated, silver-grey tails, crisp white shirt, dusky dark rose silk tie and platinum cuff-links glinting elegantly at his wrists; unsurprisingly, he was thinking much the same about her. The dress she had finally found was a 1950s inspired piece in chocolate silk taffeta shot with black, with intricate bias cutting, a narrow skirt, three quarter sleeves and a boat neckline that showed off her decolletage to perfection. Tiger's eye and gold jewellery and her usual subtle hair and makeup finished the effect. They just stood, almost dumb-struck, drinking each other in, until he held out his hands to her and said, when she took them and smiled at him,

"God, you're beautiful."

"Liar, but I'll accept it. So are you." And it was true. He was mesmerising to look at, an effect only enhanced when he spoke and she realised, again, that his voice was undoubtedly even more seductive than his appearance. Sighing reluctantly, she went on matter of factly, "We really should depart otherwise I'm going to have to start undressing you, especially if you keep looking at me like that!"

Laughing, he kissed her very carefully so as to not smudge her lipstick before checking his watching and doing a double-take.

"Christ, you're right, we'd better get going!"

The venue was a tiny, ancient chapel in an equally ancient churchyard not far from Malcolm's place on the outskirts of the city. Arriving just after the groom, who was attired much the same as his best man, they met at the doorway and Harry effected the introductions. Malcolm was tall, slender and dapper, with silver hair to match his suit, an impish gleam in his dark eyes and had responded to the introduction in perfectly pitched, extremely elegant Mandarin, instantly delighting her. Listening to the two men banter, Hope rapidly realised that they shared the same sense of humour as well as 25 years of working together and began to understand how they had stayed such quiet, understated but firm friends.

Malcolm, for his part, took in the tall, athletic, graceful woman in front of him, with eyes deeper and more ancient than the yard they were standing in and an almost palpable aura of tranquillity, saw how she looked at his old friend and how he looked back, and was happy. He had always had un-nameable doubts about the odd relationship with Ruth; he had once heard Harry decrying his daughter's tendency to pick up any bird with a broken wing that she found, with the implication that she got the rescue instinct from her mother. Over the following years with the Ruth relationship, however, Malcolm had realised that Catherine was far more likely to have got it from her father. Along with his well-known _penchant_ for giving people second chances, if ever there was a human version of a broken-winged bird it had been Ruth but Harry had found the right one this time. Maybe, hopefully and for the sake of the man's sanity, there would be another wedding soon...

Guests were beginning to arrive and Hope and the two men were about to move inside when a quiet, deep voice said from behind them,

"Hello, Malcolm, Harry." The trio turned, the two men with delighted smiles on their face. Hope saw a younger, dark haired man who was as tall as Malcolm grinning at them, a spectacular, if slightly brittle, California blonde standing next to him.

"Tom, Christine, thanks for coming," Malcolm shook the younger man's hand and kissed the woman on the cheek; Harry just smiled, said their names and proferred his hand to Tom only to be hauled into a quick bear-hug.

"You're looking well, Harry."

"I am well. And who wouldn't be, on a day like today?" He turned and kissed Christine on both cheeks but Hope sensed there was a tiny bit of animosity in the other woman's eyes, although it faded as soon as it had appeared. She would find out what that was about one day, perhaps: it clearly wasn't of major importance to Harry as it didn't even seem to register with him. Feeling an inquisitive, bright blue gaze on her Hope turned back to the younger man as Harry rejoined her. "Tom, Christine, this is Hope Johnson. Hope, Tom and Christine Quinn."

_Oh, __that__ Tom,_ she thought as they shook. _Harry's Section Chief who had later carried out that extraordinary joint operation with mysterious Ilya Gavrik and the FSB to gain the justice owed to Ruth and the others after RussiaFirst. And his ex-CIA wife..._ Seeing the trio measuring each other with their eyes Harry said quietly,

"It's alright, Tom, she's one of us. Current national security advisor to the Australian government, same background of the rest of us, just in the other hemisphere."

Tom continued to look at her and she looked back, equally as calmly. Then he smiled.

"We must talk later, then! Christine and I could do with an update on south-east Asia—"

"You are _not_ talking work at Malcolm's wedding, or at least not now." Harry cut in, putting his arm around Hope's shoulders and the authority unmissable in his tone. "It's probably time we got inside, the bride is due to arrive any minute, so come on."

When she did arrive, Hope understood immediately why Malcolm was smitten and from whence the flattering colour scheme for the gentlemen of the wedding party had come. Angharad, being walked down the tiny aisle by her eldest daughter, was a tall, slender vision in silver and dusky pink silk with a silver lace bolero jacket and a pill-box hat with silver netting perched on her cloud of platinum hair. And her cornflower blue eyes were all for the equally tall man waiting for her at the altar.

The service was short, sweet and rather lovely. Half an hour later they were all outside again, in the pale spring light, waiting for the obligatory photos to be finished. Harry had rejoined Hope as soon as they were back outside and they were talking to Tom and Christine when the two men were called over for a mug shot with the happy couple. Following more slowly, the American woman asked,

"Have you known Harry long?"

Hope slid her eyes sideways and gave a half smile.

"Well, we first met, ooh, getting on for 25 years ago but that was only in passing and neither of us really remember much about it, although I _do_ remember that he was ridiculously beautiful at the time! Then we didn't physically meet up again until last September, although the jobs had kept us in intermittent contact over the years. You two have presumably actually known him for longer, though."

"Ten or eleven years, on and off, for me. Much longer for Tom, of course. You know Harry was his boss?"

"Yes."

"And that he decommissioned him?"

"I'd heard something of the sort. For good reasons, though, I believe. Is that why you're ambivalent about him?"

The blonde's eyes sharpened. This relaxed, middle aged woman didn't miss much... Christine sighed.

"No, he was right to do it, Tom was a mess. The ambivalence is because Harry broke Tom and I up." Hope lifted an eyebrow but said nothing. She knew his own past with Elena Gavrik and – _what was her name? Juliet something, who had been his senior officer_ – had left him hypersensitive on the subject of his officers getting involved with anyone from other agencies, whether on the same side or not, since the 1980s and it sounded like this pair had paid the price. Christine lowered her eyes for a moment before looking up, slightly rueful. "And he was right to do that at the time as well. We have actually forgiven him for it all and I've grown almost as fond of the old man as Tom is, it's just a stupid automated reaction I always have the first time we meet after a while. His actions, deserved or not, caused us such pain at the time."

They both looked over at their men-folk and Malcolm signalled for them to come over.

"Less of the old, by the way, he's not that ancient!"

"No, I know that. But he's dropped about 15 years since we last saw him, last year. I presume that's down to you."

They started to make their way across the yard, carefully stepping around soft patches to avoid their heels sinking in.

"Partly. Maybe. We've been good for each other."

"Obviously!" Christine flashed a crafty smile that transformed her face and instantly endeared herself to the older woman by asking bluntly, "Oh, and what do you mean 'ridiculously beautiful'? _Harry?!_"

Hope suddenly grinned at her young companion.

"Absolutely! He was a stunner – still is, but then I'm biased. A head full of spun gold curls, impressively fit, that bloody irresistible voice, the charm and of course he's always been a serious flirt so it's no wonder all the girls just fell at his feet. Funnily enough I wasn't one of them at the time, though, he was a bit too pretty for my taste."

"He's never flirted with me," Christine grumbled under her breath as they approached the wedding group and Hope chuckled quietly.

"Have you ever given him a chance?"

"No. I might now, you have me intrigued and Tom has always said Harry would have flirted with Osama bin Laden if he thought it would have got him what he wanted and it probably would have!"

Both of them were laughing at that image by this stage as they joined the men and the happy couple and were obliged to submit themselves to the ministrations of the photographer. Eventually it was over and they could all repair to the reception venue where the half a dozen large tables were scattered around a small dance floor. It was a very relaxed occasion once the meal was done and the dance floor became more popular as the night wore on. Hope was delighted to find Harry was an excellent dancer, better than she was, so she could relax into his arms as he expertly guided them around the floor. She was stolen by Tom at one point, when Harry was talking to Malcolm and a couple of other old work-mates; once he realised, he promptly grabbed Christine and took her out instead. The looked like they were enjoying themselves and the woman was definitely encouraging him to flirt; towards the end of the evening, when they were back together, taking a break on the side of the dance floor, she said,

"You and Christine looked like you were enjoying yourselves. I wasn't sure how you'd go when I saw you getting her out."

He knew she wouldn't have missed that inevitable reaction from Christine. It was water off a duck's back to him and he understood the Californian's reasons perfectly, so he shrugged and answered,

"She is fine now, has been for some time. I believe they have both forgiven me for the action I took that day. It was for his own good. If he had stayed I dread to think what would have happened to him."

He looked bleak, remembering Tom's melt-down and what it had led to, both in the short and long term. Recognising the potential for his recollections to unsettle him and risk stirring up his depression again (she harboured no illusions that he was completely recovered on that front, for all his resilience) she tried to divert him.

"Christine told me she was really pissed off with you at the time because you had made them break up."

That made him look at her again.

"Did she tell you why?"

"No." He explained. "Ahh. Fair enough. She did say she'd forgiven you for that as well, by the way."

"Yes, I know." He reached for her hand and kissed it. "Did she _also_ tell you that Tom is the one responsible for the rather nasty bullet scar on my shoulder that you're so fond of trying to kiss better?"

"What? No! How the hell—"

Her genuine disbelief was an odd sort of joy for him – she wasn't _completely _unflappable then! – and he suddenly grinned.

"Long story. I'll tell you later but it was after I decommissioned him. He put a bullet in me to stop me from stopping him doing something stupid. Just as well he's such a good shot, even with a rifle. As it was he only just missed taking out my lung."

She stared at him, wide eyed – for once, something he had said had surprised her.

"Jesus, Harry, one of your own tried to kill you? And you're still talking to him?"

He continued smiling as he shook his head.

"No, he didn't try to kill me. He just wanted to stop me. He wasn't in a good frame of mind at the time, shall we say."

She gazed at him with a mixture of disbelief and creeping admiration.

"You really are a most unusual man, Harry Pearce. We might be two sides of the same coin but there are differences in the pattern after all. I'm not sure I could be so generous."

He shook his head at her.

"Yes, you would, under the same circumstances." A fond smile crossed his face. "First day back at the office after I got out of hospital I walked into a meeting to hear the crew discussing it. One of them – Adam – asked me if I was in Tom's position would I shoot me. I had to walk out before I burst out laughing because the answer was '_yes_'!" She smiled back at him, still unsure if she could be so magnanimous, but he had cocked his ear to the music and then, standing up, pulled her to her feet. "Come on, this one sounds like a good excuse for a cuddle in public..."

It was a fairly slow song so they moulded themselves together, cheek to cheek. Malcolm, watching from where he was standing with his new wife, smiled gently; Angharad followed his gaze and said,

"They look happy."

Draping an arm around her shoulders he kissed her temple.

"I believe they are, _cariad_. And if any of us have earned it, he has."

"What do you think of her, now you have met?"

The question was apposite. He had been pondering that ever since the meeting in the pub and hadn't been able to come up with an answer until today. He had never met Jane but knew she had been fierce, feisty and highly intelligent (and that Harry had never forgiven himself for destroying something that was so good); he was aware of Belle (most people who moved in certain circles were aware of Belle!), who fit much the same description but was too much of a free spirit to be tied down by anyone; and then there was Ruth, who had also had her fair share of the three attributes, at least in the early days before life, the job and events often beyond her control contorted her into something almost unrecognisable.

Hope, though, was something slightly different: no doubting her strength of character, independence and intelligence (he had snatched another slightly esoteric conversation with her in Mandarin earlier in the evening and had enjoyed every minute of it), he could now understand Harry's comments. Hope was stillness incarnate, like a bottomless pool of cool, clear liquid and exuded what he recognised as a Zen calm, even when she had been gently teasing him during their earlier discussion. There wasn't a shred of malice in her body and she had a very Taoist philosphy of accepting things as they came, without judgement.

"I like her. And I think she is exactly what he needs and is well overdue in his life."

The couple were indeed happy, enjoying each other's touch without talking. Hope was thinking of nothing, half listening to the music – it was their old friends, the Scottish band who had reappeared in their lives from nowhere – as was Harry, although the lyrics didn't really register until the second verse and then he thought he would never hear anything more lovely or apt to his life as it now was.

"_But you came to me like the ways of children,_

_simple as breathing, easy as air._

_Now the years hold no fears, like the wind they pass over._

_Loved, forgiven, washed, saved._

_Every river I try to cross, every hill I try to climb,_

_every ocean I try to swim, every road I try to find._

_All the ways of my life, I'd rather be with you._

_There's no way without you."_

Never a truer word spoken. Or sung. For all her brilliance, the woman in his arms had indeed come to him, simple and easy, accepting him for what he was and wanting nothing more from him than what he was capable of giving, and suddenly he could see a future that was no longer terrifying in its emptiness and loneliness. Whether she got one of these jobs now or not he didn't care; here or a world away, he would be with her. If she wanted him. He nuzzled her ear; sensing his mood, she turned her head to face him and he kissed her, decorous but very loving. Before she could ask what was on his mind he said,

"How long before I can follow you home? To Canberra?"

She lifted a hand to his cheek.

"As soon as you want, my love, unless you would like to leave it a few weeks to see if I hear about these jobs. That way at least you'll know whether you're looking at moving over long term or if you're coming to help me pack."

_Well, at least she was still being positive_... He kissed her again as the music finished.

"That's probably a good idea. We'll leave it until next month, then – maybe Easter?"

She grinned at him as the song finished.

"That would be good. I'll even play the Bunny and lay on the chocolate for you, assuming I can avoid eating it first!"

He squeezed her tight and was going to kiss her again when a buzz of activity near the door caught their attention.

"Looks like the happy couple are leaving. We'd better go and do our duty, then we can follow them and go home."

They joined everyone to farewell Malcolm and Angharad then stayed around talking to Tom and Christine for a little longer before all four of them took their departure. When they got home they decamped straight to the bedroom – it was getting late and, as it was their last night sharing a bed for the immediate future, neither had any desire to delay any more. Shoes came off straight away, then Hope headed for the bathroom to remove her makeup. Re-emerging ten minutes later she found Harry stripped to his briefs and in the process of putting away the beautiful tie and cufflinks. Giving a low wolf-whistle she said,

"Nice bottom!" and sashayed over to join him, running her hands over his glutes as she pulled him to her for an embrace.

"You're still dressed, woman!"

"Well if you object you'd better do something about it then, hadn't you?"

The next day was their last, as she was flying home that night. It went depressingly quickly, chewed up mostly by mundane tasks. No matter how much they ignored it, the time approached all too rapidly until finally they could put it off no longer and departed for the airport. It took an age to check in, leaving little time afterwards but they dredged every last second until she absolutely had to leave. The departure was swift but did nothing to assuage the pain they both felt. She promised to send him a text when she got home and was then gone, leaving him feeling totally bereft. As was she.

Harry felt the greyness start to descend as he walked back out to the carpark but refused to succumb this time; it would only be a few weeks before they would see each other again, one way or the other. The drive home was silent, as was the house when he got there. Silent and oddly chilly, as it had always been, until the last three weeks. God, how was he going to stand it again? He couldn't believe how intensely he was missing her already.

Going to bed crossed his mind but he knew he wouldn't sleep so retired to the sitting room with a glass and the bottle of Ardbeg he had hardly touched since he had brought Hope home. By the time he did drag himself back upstairs to his empty bed, hours later, she was half way across Europe and having her own difficulty getting to sleep, not just due to the uncomfortableness of the seat but because she was letting her mind wander in directions it never did. Towards the future and what it might hold.

The following 24 hours dragged interminably for both of them. Hope had no choice, stuck in an aluminium tube at 41,000' for most of the time. Despite going to bed so late, and more than half cut, Harry had still taken ages to sleep and so, uncharacteristically, woke late and slightly hung-over on the Sunday morning to find himself sleeping on her side of the bed, breathing in the last notes of her rapidly fading scent from the pillow. Finally dragging himself up and into the bathroom he was insensibly cheered to see her pair of black stockings from the wedding tossed onto the chair next to the door. The end of that particular evening was a memory that would bear revisiting a few times, he thought, smiling softly as he gently stroked the silky fabric. And look forward to repeating, on the other side of the globe...

It was mid-afternoon and he was about to head out for a walk (anything, to get out of the echoing emptiness) when there was a knock at the door. Totally baffled, he checked the monitor to see his daughter outside. Flinging the door open he said,

"Catherine! Hello, love, come in!" and wrapped her in a bear hug before pulling her inside and closing the door behind them.

"Hello, Dad." She kissed him on both cheeks and stood back to examine him. This was the first chance she had had to catch up with him since she had returned from her extended honeymoon in early February; he had been off at some meeting for a week soon after she returned and then, later, had unaccountably disappeared when she had dropped around a couple of times over the past two weeks. Now, she realised, he was looking even better than he had at her wedding, with more colour in his cheeks and had even put on weight, no longer looking quite so gaunt. He was leading her back to the kitchen and asking something about what sort of coffee she wanted...

"What do you mean, what _sort_ of coffee? Since when have you become a barista, Dad?"

He gave her the sort of sunny smile that had been so rare for the past – many – years as they walked into the room.

"It's not me, it's a machine, although I've got rather good at twiddling the appropriate dials. So what would you like? Espresso, cappucino, latte? Long black? Macchiato? Or would you prefer tea?"

Catherine laughed as she took in the rather large coffee machine sitting on the bench top. That hadn't been there last time she had been here, before Christmas... (Hope had bought it, declaring most English coffee to be dishwater that she couldn't possibly drink.)

"Cappucino would be nice, thank you."

She moved to the kitchen table, the slight hesitation in her walk reminding him again of how close he had come to losing her in Beirut not so many years ago, and sat down to watch him, indeed, expertly produce their drinks while continuing to wonder what had happened. Clearly something good. They continued to talk for another fifteen minutes and she still couldn't quite believe the transformation: this was the father she had barely seen for the last ten or fifteen years as the work had slowly devoured him and then he had been nearly finished off by what had happened to the woman he had been going to marry.

She had been terrified of losing him completely when he had turned up that night on her doorstep and most of the following eighteen months had been akin to a nightmare, although it had made her realise even more how much of an idiot she had been, automatically taking her mother's side and pushing him away for years. They had been well on the way to repairing their relationship when everything at his work blew up and then he had lost Ruth, in the aftermath of which she had faced the thought that she might never fully get him back again, the grief had been so intense. But now, incredibly, here he was, the old twinkle in his eye and the funny, cutting conversation. She couldn't believe it.

When the coffee was finished he picked their cups up and took them to the sink to wash, asking,

"So what brings you around here anyway? Just visiting your old dad or something else? How's Aron, by the way?"

"He's fine. Tied up filming an advertisement, believe it or not. The things you have to do to make money!" She stood up and joined him at the sink, kissing him on the cheek and slipping an arm around his waist. "I've tried catching you a couple of times in the last few weeks but you were never home. I just wanted to see how you are but clearly the answer is very good." Letting him go she added, "And to ask you what you're doing for Easter? Do you want to come over for lunch on Easter Sunday?"

He smiled at her and leaned back against the bench.

"I am very well now, thank you. Easter won't be able to happen this year, though, I won't be back by then."

'_Won't be back?' _ A silence, companionable, fell between them until she succumbed to temptation, as he knew she would – she had never been much good at exercising patience. Putting her hand on his arm she asked,

"Won't be back from where? Dad, what's going on? You're happier than I can almost ever remember seeing you so something's obviously happened. Are you going to tell me what?"

His smile was gentle this time. _No point hiding things, that didn't fit his post-Ruth world._

"I'm going to be in Australia for Easter this year, Catherine."

She did a genuine double-take that was a delight to behold.

"You'll be _where? _What are you going there for? Chasing the cricket or something?"

Her huge dark eyes, so much like his own and about the only thing, apart from her colouring, that she had directly inherited from him, stared back at him in disbelief. He ruffled her blonde curls, also so much like his now that she had given up the battle to keep her pale gold locks straight, and explained, despite the sudden on-set of nerves.

"No cricket, that's finished for the year over there. Rather more personal. I've met someone, Catherine. If you had dropped by yesterday you would have met her but she had to fly home last night. You will get another chance in a few month's time, though. I'm going over there in a couple of weeks to, hopefully, help her pack up and move back over here for a few years. After that, who knows? Right now, all I know is that I've been given another chance to be happy and I don't want to risk screwing it up this time. I might have spent most of my life being a bastard to everyone close to me, including you and your brother, and although I may deserve it I don't _want_ to grow old alone. Hope, who knows and understands it all, accepts me as I am and we make each other happy, so..."

It had all come out in a rush and, although she could see that the new relationship had done wonders she wasn't quite sure whether she was up to talking about it just yet so she latched on to the later part of his discourse.

"You're not a bastard, Dad. The job is but you're not. I'm old enough to understand that now. In fact, the older I'm getting the more I think – I hope – I'm starting to understand you and respect you, for what you do and have done." She saw the surprise in his face but the surprise was tempered by a little disbelief so she thought she owed him some honestly as well. "Yes, you were hard but you could also a brilliant dad when you were around, it's just—

He sighed, knowing the truth and hating it.

"I was never around, or not enough. I know, and it's something I bitterly regret."

She smiled – his smile! – and said gently,

"Don't. It was the job. I was just too young to even begin to comprehend and too wrapped up in myself. I was such a self-centred brat and it's only the last few years, since I've been doing _my_ job, that I've started to think about yours and what you've achieved. As well as, more crucially, what you've had to give up."

Harry pulled her into his arms for a hug.

"You _were_ a brat at times although nowhere near as bad as your brother. And selfishness is the nature of childhood so it's hardly your fault but you've grown out of it, unlike him."

"Looking back I can see that we gave you plenty of reasons to be tough on us! Graham is getting better, though, I think he finally _is_ starting to grow up. You must have seen that recently – university is doing him the world of good."

He nodded in agreement, secretly delighted to be able to do so.

"He has, now he has something to focus his energies on, something that gives him a rigorous structure and guidelines to follow. The army provided that for me and science is providing it for him. We owe that husband of yours a debt of gratitude for stoking the flames of your brother's interest in the marine world. Now I see life a little differently I believe I might be startng to understand some of his past actions, even if I don't condone them. You know, I vowed not to be as hard on you as your grandfather was on me and your uncle but then it just happened, for which I am eternally sorry."

He had never admitted to her that he knew she had called him a bully when discussing him with Danny Hunter all those years ago but a little bit of him had died inside that day and he still burned with internalised shame every time he thought about it. This was about as close as he had ever skated around it, half fishing, half not wanting to know if she still felt the same. Today, she surprised him with her response.

"Don't be. Kids need strong rules and it was our choice to react the way we did, and do, remember."

He gazed at her, wondering when she had become this objective, level-headed adult, but said nothing, until eventually she asked, returning to the other subject,

"Is that her name? Hope? Are you going to tell me any more?"

The shock had dissipated enough by now and curiosity was beginning to take over. After the divorce she had taken no positive interest in her father or his life, too infuriated with what she saw as meddling and interference, until after he had moved heaven and earth to save her life in Beirut. She had started to grow up after that and had begun to re-establish their relationship as adults but that hadn't extended as far as information on his other relationships. To be honest, she didn't think he _had _other relationships, she was still inclined to believe that he was married to his job. Then the truth had come out in the early hours of a cold, dark day...

Equally as unsure and just a little uncomfortable but determined to press on Harry took a breath and responsed.

"If you would like. There are even photos, if you would like to see. We would have been in Italy when you dropped by last time; Hope is very interested in the history of ancient Rome..."

Catherine was quietly glad to find out that this woman was much closer to her father's age than Ruth had been. Deeply surprised when she had found out about that 17 year age difference, she had wondered since about the wisdom of it, although there was no doubt that her father had loved the woman, for all that the relationship had never seemed to provide him with much joy, or nothing like he apparently had now, if his degree of happiness was any guide.

She had also wondered how long it would have lasted with Ruth, between the age difference and whatever the issues were that had stopped them getting together for so long (to say nothing of her own discomfort at the thought that she would have ended up with a step-mother who was only nine years her senior), whereas Hope was clearly the same generation and with the same experience of the world as her dad and, apparently, much more straight-forward. All she could do was wish him well.

It was over an hour later that Catherine's phone chirped, an hour when they had held one of the longest and most honest, open conversations they had ever had, approaching each other as independent adults for almost the first time, learning a surprising amount about those independent adults as a result. Reluctantly standing up she had said,

"It's Aron, he's finished and at home wondering where I am. We're supposed to be meeting up with some potential buyers tonight for this documentary we're doing on the follow up to the Arab Spring so I'd better get going."

As they walked to the front door her father said, almost _sotto voce_, remembering Lebanon,

"I wish you would find some other subject to work on so you didn't spend all your time in war zones."

She grinned at him and elbowed him in the ribs.

"Coming from you? Bit rich, Papa, bit rich!"

"I haven't been in an actual war zone since I left the Army!" he objected reasonably. Technically it was true although in reality it certainly wasn't and he knew she knew it wasn't, her next words proving it.

"So eastern Europe during the Cold War and now the home-grown variety masquerading as terrorism doesn't count? I'm not buying that, Dad, I know how many times you've ended up either in serious danger or hospital! Well, I know the ones you've told me about. And I've seen the scars."

"_Touche,_" he smiled as they reached the door. "At least you've got Aron along these days – _not_ to protect you, necessarily, before you flare up, but it's always safer if there's more than one of you. Being a New Zealander is actually a help in some of these places, these days. They're seen as being impartial, or at least less involved, than we are."

"I know." She kissed him on the cheek. "If it's any consolation our next project is on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – that disgusting floating rubbish dump of our own creation inside the North Pacific Gyre – and it's effects on marine life, the ocean and us. Aron's been asking me for ages to work with him on it and the more he's showing me the angrier I'm getting. We are such an appallingly destructive species..." He would well believe that, the sparks were firing in her dark eyes already but she took a deep breath and discarded them, instead smiling slightly ruefully. "We seem to be developing a taste for Antipodeans in this family! Aron, Hope, even Graham is heading to Townsville for his uni research project in a few months... I'm happy for you, Dad. You deserve it."

He shrugged slightly, eyes down-cast.

"I'm still not convinced about that myself but everyone else seems to think so."

"It's because it's true. And I'm so sorry I misjudged you for years, especially after you and Mum split up. We've missed so much."

He sighed.

"Yes, well, you could only judge from where you were sitting and I know what it probably looked like from there, especially at the age you were."

There was a short silence as they stood before the door before she said, quietly,

"I know what really happened, you know. It all came out a few years ago." He said nothing, just looked at her expressionlessly. _What saga had Jane come up with this time?_ "Aunt Sarah and Uncle Don came over for Mum's birthday. They all got, well, pissed, to put it politely. Your name got mentioned and Mum started bagging you, enthusiastically supported as usual by my tosser of a step-father. Then Aunt Sarah spat the dummy and it all came out. How you actually weren't the first one to look elsewhere. Mum was. From fairly early on, after my big brother died, and repeatedly, until you walked. She admitted it, eventually, too, it's a bit hard to deny it when it's your own sister spilling the beans." _Christ, she had actually told the truth for once in her life, then..._ "Is it true you tried to get custody of us?"

He nodded and sighed again.

"Yes, but was told in no uncertain terms by the solicitors that I had almost no hope. Fathers never did, those days, let alone one with my job, temper and recent history with Robin bloody Tindall. I didn't give up the fight but that's exactly how it went in the end. Sorry, darling, things might have been different for all of us if I'd succeeded."

He thought he would keep to himself how much it had nearly killed him to lose them after the premature loss of the first boy and on top of having to walk away to protect the son he had thought was his behind the Iron Curtain. She didn't need to know any of that, she could work out the former and the latter had turned out to be a lie anyway.

They hugged each other and when she looked up Catherine had a sheen of tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Dad, I'm so, so sorry. For everything. It took years and then, just when we were getting better, I thought we'd lost you again that night you turned up at the door and I was so scared... Anyway, I'll be doing my best to make it up to you for the rest of my life and I'm continuing to push it through my brother's thick skull as well. It's getting easier now he's been clean for so long but he's still so stubborn sometimes."

_Don't know where he gets that trait from_...

"It's okay, love. A new start for all of us, hey?" He chucked her under the chin, the way he used to do when she was little. "Don't cry. Life's too short. And you'll start me off, you know what I'm like these days, start weeping at the drop of a hat! Go home and enjoy that husband of yours instead."

She gave a slightly watery smile.

"I will but on the condition that you bring Hope over as soon as you can."

"Agreed." He leaned forward and murmured conspiratorially, "Just as long as we make sure it's at a time when any of their national sporting teams aren't at war with each other or ours or there could be blood on the floor. Now go, I don't need an irate son-in-law bailing me up on the doorstep at my age."

There was still a bit of light in the sky after she left, still gurgling with laughter, so he went for his walk, coming back _via_ his local for dinner. Eventually realising that resistance was futile he ended up on the internet, glass of scotch to hand, at 10.00pm, looking at airfares to Canberra. Who was he trying to kid? He wasn't going to be able to wait until Easter...

Half an hour later it was the turn of his phone to chirp. Picking it up his heart melted into a gooey mess when he saw who it was from.

'_Finally home. And still stinking hot!'_

Jesus, that was a long trip... Without even thinking about it he dialled her number and waited.

In Canberra, Hope had just arrived home when she sent him the text. 8.00 am and it was already over thirty degrees although at least there was no smoke in the air. Yet. Turning on the aircon she was heading for the fridge to look for something cool to drink when the mobile started ringing.

"Oh for Christ's sake I've only just got home..." Picking it up, the scowl turned to a soft smile as she saw the caller ID.

"Hello."

Her voice was low, soft and warm in his ear, the single word sending a _frisson_ down his spine.

"Hello." His own voice was equally as soft and warm in her ear, its deep tones like velvet. Or molten chocolate, she decided. "That's a bloody long flight if you've only just got there."

She laughed wearily.

"It is that. Consider yourself warned. What are you doing still up at this hour on Sunday night, anyway?"

"On the internet looking at flights to Australia, oddly enough! Just starting to do some planning... I suppose it's tomorrow morning over there?"

"Correct. And thirty bloody degrees already. God knows what it will be by lunchtime..."

They kept chatting for another ten minutes before she sent him to bed and went back to her unpacking. Well, she had thought she'd sent him to bed but he didn't get there for the better part of another hour. After he'd booked his flights. For the following Friday-week, returning two months later. He wouldn't tell her, he decided, he might just turn up on her doorstep and see what reaction he got...

It didn't seem so bad to be going to bed alone, now he knew it was only going to be for a couple of weeks. Waking up in the morning would prove to be the worst time of the day for him: he would inevitably reach for her while he was still mostly asleep, wanting to cuddle, then just as inevitably wake up completely when she wasn't there, spending the rest of the time until the alarm went off staring at the ceiling, wondering what she was doing and resigning himself to another day without her company.

Returning to the Grid the next morning was a curiously dispiriting experience. Continuing the old habit of arriving long before everyone else, he was buried in sorting out what needed doing and what didn't when the rest of the team started to drift in and wave their hello's. It was Waleed who first realised that, for the first time in 21 months, all the blinds in Harry's office were open. While he was in there. And they all noticed the sapphire blue tie, relaxed demeanour and, of all things, an incipient tan when they piled into the meeting room. It was Calum who actually said something, while they were awaiting the last couple of stragglers.

"Jesus, Harry, where have you been to get a tan at this time of the year?"

The response was as dry as a desert wind but only mildly ironic.

"Thank you, Calum, for that warm 'welcome back' and _Rome_ was very nice, with the possible exception of the two muggers who pulled knives on us in an alleyway one evening." Everyone turned to look at him, eyes wide, especially the trio who had been on the coast that day and were now caught between horror at the thought of him being put in that position again and, knowing what he was capable of, terror at the prospect of his reaction under those circumstances. He smiled gently. "Oh, don't worry, the one I dealt with only ended up unconscious with a broken jaw and I believe the other, who made the mistake of taking on Hope, probably has a knee-joint that is smashed beyond repair. Petty crims really should learn how to identify members of the international security services before they decide to take us on, for their own protection. Now, can we get on with this meeting?" Stifled laughs rippled around the table before they plunged into the business of the day.

He didn't get a chance to stop again until mid-afternoon, after the usual round of meetings, politicians and crises (real and imagined) were dealt with. Leaning back in his chair for a breather he stared absently through the windows opposite, not really seeing the activity out on the main floor and barely registering that the sight of Waleed seated at Ruth's old work station was causing him only muted regret these days. A few warm memories came back, making him smile, but, for the first time, no ghosts. Hope's "process of absorption" must be nearly complete, then, the grief now part of his soul, although his planned trip on Sunday would test that particular hypothesis... His inbox chimed and, as he read the missive from the Home Secretary, he suddenly realised, with absolute clarity, that he really _was_ over a large part of this job. He would have preferred to be back out in the field than in here, dealing with politicians, bureaucrats and the assorted other detritus of society but, even more, he just wanted to turn his back on all of it. Forever. Depending on what happened in Canberra he might even pull the plug while he was over there.

Sunday came all too quickly and he found himself standing before that subtle, elegant, polished larvikite monument, shivering slightly in a boisterous, chilly wind under suitably grey skies. No birds this time and only glimpses of blue sky through rents in the clouds. It still bloody hurt. Far more than he was expecting but, oddly, nowhere near as intensely. It was a more subdued, rounded and infinitely older pain now, one that he could recognise and embrace but, crucially, also see beyond. Consuming, but no longer _all_-consuming, and no longer totally blinding... Maybe he was, finally, getting used to it, as he had eventually got used to all those who came before. Permanently changed by each one and never forgetting any of them but going on, ever on.

He continued to stand before the grave, silent, for a few more minutes, his mind roaming back over the previous decade and the two, contrasting periods that had been dominated by Ruth. The first silly, happy years and then the later, tumultuous and painful period when all they seemed to do was hurt each other, apart from those final few, better moments book-ending the mess that was the Gavrik family. He felt the tears return but this time they were for all the missed and wasted opportunities and the unnecessary anguish they had caused each other when it should have all been so easy. Shaking his head briefly and blinking the tears away he murmured,

"Oh Ruth, my love, why could you _never_ trust me?"

Pointless. He knew he could get no answer but he would never stop wondering. Sighing, he set about tidying up – not that it was really needed – while very quietly talking to her inside his head. Mostly updates on the office gossip but also a few tales from the world of politics and Malcolm's lovely news, of course. Eventually, though, everything was tidy and the new flowers were in place. He perched on the edge of the grave and sighed again, murmuring out loud, as though it would matter.

"I won't be here for your birthday or the anniversary this year, which is why I'm here now. I'm going away for a couple of months." He fell silent for a moment, feeling silly for talking but unable to stop, despite knowing that no-one was listening, least of all Ruth. "I've met someone, Ruth. She's one of us, so I've told her about everything, including you and, luckily for me, she understands. All of it, every nuance. As you never could and as I never expected you to be able to. She lost her husband before you and I had even met and in circumstances that were possibly worse than us so she gets that, too. She's of my generation, not yours, which makes us both Cold War dinosaurs, I suppose, and I believe we love each other, deeply, although that's one thing that still hasn't been said." He scrubbed his face. "She's not you, and never will be, but then I will never replace her husband, either, and I accept that. But we make each other so very happy and I'm not going to let this chance go by without acting on it. Unlike us, who let every opportunity pass until it _was_ too late. Twice. Malcolm says you would understand and I know, in my heart, you would. Or at least I hope so."

He stopped talking again and sat, staring at her name and wondering what he was doing, talking to a silent grave. Almost like he was waiting for something. Another hole was ripped in the cloud cover and a shaft of sunlight momentarily lit up the area around the grave, shining briefly off the headstone, the schiller in the large crystals sparkling as blue as her eyes and reflecting back into his. Then it was gone. Although he knew it was pure coincidence the hair still stood up on the back of his neck for a second. If he believed in that sort of thing he would have thought it was Ruth, giving her blessing, but that, of course, was patently silly.

Shaking his head at the ridiculous thought – just as on all his previous visits he could sense nothing because there was nothing there; if Ruth was anywhere, she was on the Grid and even there she had faded away almost completely, as time had its way of doing – he stood up, poured the libation and bid her farewell. For the moment. There was a smile in his voice and a faint trace of one on his face as he spoke.

"There is no way that was you – far too much of a cliche and if there is one thing you were not, my dear, it was a cliche. I'll be back. You'll not be rid of me that easily." He knew Hope still visited Wynne once or twice a year so he could see no reason why he shouldn't do the same for Ruth – he would not leave her here, alone and untended, any more than Hope could leave Wynne. As he walked away the sun came out again, for longer this time, and the missing bird returned and started singing but, too full of thoughts and memories, he didn't notice.

Every River. Written by Rory and Calum MacDonald, performed by Runrig.


	10. Chapter 10

10\. **March 2013 - Canberra**

8.30 on Saturday morning and it was already 35°C and climbing rapidly towards the predicted top of 43°. Hope sighed at the thought of yet another bloody hot day. She had been home for two weeks and it had hardly let up, apart from a few days at the end of last week. And the fires had started up again, too – you wouldn't think there was anything left to burn within 500km of town and, by rights, it really should have been cooling down by now... Moving slowly around the house, closing blinds, curtains and doors against the heat, she became aware of the music playing on the radio in the kitchen. Gabriel Fauré, "_Après un Rêve_", a song she knew well enough to sing along with in bad French as she continued barricading the house against the relentless onslaught of the sun.

"_Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image _

(In a slumber which held your image spellbound)

_Je rêvais le bonheur, ardent mirage_

_(_I dreamt of happiness, passionate mirage)

_Tes yeux étaint plus doux, ta voix pure et sonore,_

(Your eyes were softer, your voice pure and sonorous)

_Tu rayonnais comme un ciel éclairé par l'aurore;_

(You shone like a sky lit up by the dawn.)

"_Tu m'appelais et je quittais la terre_

(You called me and I left the earth)

_Pour m'enfuir avec toi vers la lumière,_

(to run away with you towards the light)

_Les cieux pour nous entr'ouvraient leurs nues_

(The skies opened their clouds for us)

_Splendeurs inconnues, lueurs divines entre vues_

(Unknown splendours, divine flashes glimpsed)

"_Hélas! Hélas, triste réveil des songes_

_(_Alas! Alas! Sad awakening from dreams.)

_Je t'appelle, ô nuit, rends moi tes mensonges,_

(I call you, O night, give me back your lies.)

_Reviens, reviens radieuse,_

(Return, return radiant,)

_Reviens, ô nuit mystérieuse!"_

(Return, O mysterious night).

She understood enough of it to know how well it fit, too. She _had_ dreamed of him – again – last night. Radiant indeed, with those irridescent eyes that changed from the darkest chocolate through amber to the greenest hazel, depending on light or mood, the velvet voice, honey-gold curls and those irresistible lips, of course. And had she been mightily peeved when she woke up, aching for him, and he wasn't there. '_Alas, sad wakening from dreams_' indeed. She knew it was only because she hadn't spoken to or otherwise heard from him since yesterday morning but still...

It had been something of a surprise, how much she was missing him; she was having to be extremely disciplined at work otherwise she would drift off into a reverie at any opportunity, which was somewhat embarrassing in the middle of a meeting (they would laugh, later, when he admitted to having the same problem, only worse because he _had_ been sprung at it in the midst of a particularly boring JIC...) and at home it was far harder, particularly in bed where she was craving just being held in that strong, gentle embrace. She wasn't sure she liked falling in love at her age, it consumed far too much energy. All she could hope was that he was suffering as well, at least to some extent, locked down and _incommunicado_ in his two-day training exercise or whatever the hell it was.

Heading back to the kitchen she turned the airconditioners on in passing and then hauled yoghurt and fruit out of the fridge for breakfast, unwrapped the paper and sat down to eat and read, pondering what to do for the rest of the day. _Race out and do the grocery shopping before it got any hotter and then probably not much, not when it was going to turn into a blast furnace outside_. And put up with being irritable all day, courtesy of the bloody dream! At least she wasn't at work, where everyone would be wondering why she was so snarky.

It was, Harry decided, like walking into the open gates of Hell as he finally exited the airport just after 9.00am, heading for the hire car ranks. It was _obscenely _hot and dry enough to suck every last bit of moisture out of anything stupid enough to stay out in it for too long. The sky was pale orange and smoky, the sun bronze and there was a pervasive smell of burning wood in the air – he remembered the pilot making some comment about bushfires and an extreme heat warning so obviously this was what she had meant. _And this was Autumn? Christ_... The nearest he had come to this before was his gap year in Israel but even then he'd missed the worst of the summer heat so this was a new experience entirely.

Fishing out his rarely-used sunglasses he found the hire car lot, mightily thankful that at least the walkways were shaded for most of the way, albeit to little effect at this hour of the day, and opened the door of his nondescript white Hyundai sedan only to get another blasting as air even hotter than outside exited in a rush. Sighing, he got in, realising that even the upholstery was warm and, after swearing loudly when the metal tongue of the seat belt burned his fingers and then the plasticised top of the gearstick did the same to his palm, that even the steering wheel was actually almost too hot to touch.

_So much for the fresh shirt! _He was half-drenched already, although the discomfort was almost made up for by the joy of not wearing a tie. Deciding that if he was on holidays he wasn't going to need one he had taken great delight in leaving every single one of the wretched things at home, a decision that was now proven correct. Opening another button on his shirt he started the engine and turned the air conditioning up to high, collapsing in relief against the seat as an ice cold breeze poured out of the vents. Fortunately he wouldn't be in the machine for long, anyway, he'd checked on GoogleEarth before he left home and knew her house was less than 5km from the airport.

Tapping the address into the in-car navigation system he headed west and then north, through first one, then a second, then a third roundabout – someone was obsessed with circles in this city, he'd noticed the predominance of the shape even to a suburban level as they had flown in – as the ground rose up steeply on his right, covered in silvery-grey-green bush that was scarred with the red-brown-black of old fires on the creasts. _Explosive, fire-prone, silvery-grey-green bush,_ he corrected himself as he drew closer to his destination, heart starting to beat a little faster and hoping desperately that he hadn't mis-read her. After the past decade he had no confidence left on that front at all and he certainly hadn't done anything this impetuous in his private life for at least twice as long as that.

The thought left him with a passing stab of bitter regret that he had never been sure enough of Ruth's reaction to have risked doing something so impulsive with her, although he had thought about it often enough, especially when she was in exile. However, Ruth was the past and Hope was the present and, with a bit of luck, the future so he threw his past love a vote of thanks for making him wake up to the importance of communication and sponteneity and let the regret go. Glancing at the navigation screen he realised he was getting further away from his destination and cursed, thinking he had missed the turn-off but no, it was just a case of having to negotiate a fourth roundabout before he could turn right and then right again and then there she was, at the top of the hill just before the road wound around to the right again.

The block was larger than he was expecting (at least an acre, he estimated) and the house itself was, as normal in this country, free-standing: here, not too many rows of terraces hemmed in the space and restricted the sky the way they did at home. Not overly large and not new, painted white with, surprisingly, a silver metal roof (_good for reflecting heat_, he found out later), there was a covered portico at the top of the stairs up from the driveway and large, tinted windows which were all closed and shuttered by blinds and curtains. The yard was neat and tidy with a couple of grassed terraces and lots of trees but not much in the way of flowers (_water-saving and the trees were fire-retardant_, he was told) and a broad driveway led up to the double garage built in under the house. No cars were in sight but he assumed they were shut away. Or at least he hoped so, otherwise he was going to have to wreck the surprise and ring her up to find out where she was! Parking as quietly as possible in the driveway he took a very deep breath, got out and climbed the steps to the front door, feeling the heat pressing down on him again and wondering if he had _ever_ been quite this nervous in his life...

Sitting in her tiled kitchen at the back of the house, absorbed in the news, Hope heard absolutely nothing until there was a rather peremptory knock at the front door. Puzzled, she put the paper down, finished her coffee and looked at the clock: 9.15am. She couldn't think of anyone who should or would be knocking on her door at this hour on a Saturday morning, unless it was some poor sod out in the heat collecting for charity or something, in which case they deserved a donation whether she believed in the cause or not. Padding into the vestibule, she put her eye to the spy-hole to check who was there before opening up and promptly slapped her hand to her mouth in joy when she saw him before squealing his name and unlocking both the main and screen doors, fumbling the catches in her haste.

Outside, Harry also heard nothing except the hum of airconditioning under the incipient roar of hot wind in the trees and a crow cawing somewhere not far away until an extremely undignified squeal, which may have been his name, sounded from behind the doors just before they were unlocked and slammed open. As a result he was laughing when she did so and, she thought, looked tired but totally gorgeous. Unruly half-curls, bright blonde in the brutal light, dancing eyes green-gold today, and generally a bit dishevelled from the long flight but still gorgeous. Tears flooded her eyes as she exclaimed,

"What are you _doing _here?" before throwing herself, literally, into his arms, scattering the squadron of flies that had already settled, out of the wind, onto his back.

"Well, hello to you, too," he responded before kissing her, as hard and deep as he could. She kissed him back equally ferociously; breaking apart he continued, "You don't mind putting on a show for the neighbours, either?"

Pulling a face she snorted, said,

"Care factor zero, babe! Not that anyone's out to see because it's too bloody hot anyway," and started to pull him inside. "Come on, let's get back inside before the heat, smoke and flies get in."

Once in, he let himself drink in the sight of her for a moment. Bare-foot and hair screwed up into an untidy bun held in place by a giant butterfly clip and wearing a simple sleeveless cotton top and floating, knee-length skirt, she looked cool and fit and very comely. She examined him for a moment, sensibly attired for the flight in chinos and a loose cotton shirt over the top, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top two buttons undone, before deciding that Summer casual suited him as well as dishevelled and that the exposed triangle of creamy skin on his chest was still irresistible. Running her hands up his chest and around the back of his neck she left a track of feather-light kisses from the bottom of that triangle _via_ the hollow at the base of his throat and up his neck to his ear, then across his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth, where she stopped briefly.

"Hello."

Tightening his arms around her waist he returned the greeting before she kissed his lips, light and delicate and oh so similar to that first one they had shared on a freezing terrace in Norfolk, was it only six weeks ago? This time, when they parted briefly, she put her fingers to his lips again and said fiercely,

"You could have told me you were coming, you bastard!"

He grinned and kissed her fingers instead.

"And miss that greeting? Never!" He began to rain kisses on her face, trying to cover how overwhelmed he was suddenly feeling – he honestly couldn't remember the last time, if ever, his presence had been met with such totally unfettered joy - and tasted salt.

"You're not crying, are you?"

"No," she lied.

"Good. Neither am I." She opened her eyes to see that he was fibbing as well, his were brimming too, making them even more irridescent.

"Oh Harry..."

Laughing, she pulled his face to hers for a harder kiss and then stood back, taking his hand and leading him back out towards the kitchen.

"I presume they fed you on the plane but do you want anything else? Tea, coffee, something cold—"

"The only thing I want right now," he interrupted, "is you, in my arms, so I can continue to kiss you absolutely senseless." Which is exactly what he did. They ended up with her backed up against the cool black marble of the kitchen bench, hands inside each other's unbuttoned shirts and hips pressed hard against each other. Before things could go any further she detached herself and waved a finger in his face.

"We'd better stop right there, I think, while we can."

A puzzled look and crestfallen,

"Why?" was the response.

"Because you're dead on your feet and if we end up horizontal you'll go to sleep, wrecking any chance of minimising the jet lag that's about to descend like a ton of bricks."

"No, I won't," he said in his most persuasive voice, drawing her back into an embrace but to no avail.

The same finger that had waved in his face now poked him in the chest, emphasising her words.

"Yes. You. Will. You won't be able to prevent it and then I'll have to spend the next week with a grumpy, jet-lagged bear in the house. Anyway, you deserve to wait: serves you right for not telling me you were turning up today!"

He could actually see the sense in what she was saying and to be honest had some doubts about his ability to successfully conclude anything when he was already having a hard time seeing straight through the exhaustion but he wasn't about to admit as much.

"You're a cruel woman."

Grinning, she pushed past him to make for the fridge.

"I am. And if I remember rightly you rather like my methods of punishment when I finally inflict them on you!"

The rest of the day was spent quietly avoiding the heat, after he had soaked off the stress of the flight in the shower and then they had undertaken the required visit to the shops to restock the larder. Harry did well to stay awake until 7.30 that night, when he stretched out on the lounge with his head on her lap and she realised a couple of minutes later that he had crashed. Shaking him gently awake again she told him to go to bed and then refused to listen when he tried to protest, instead hauling him upright and into the bedroom. He allowed her to push him towards the en-suite but maintained he would wake up after a shower and rejoin her, as it was far too early to go to bed.

It didn't happen, of course, the lure of getting horizontal in a real bed after forty eight hours without much sleep and being unable to stretch out comfortably was too much and he was sound asleep when she went in to join him a couple of hours later. The sight of him, looking almost cherubic in the dim light, made her both smile and realise that she could stop wondering what his long term intentions, if any, might be: he was here, in her bed, having undertaken that horrendous journey entirely off his own bat for no other reason than to be with her so presumably the proposal to share their life that he had come out with at Greenwich a few weeks ago had, indeed, been serious. Sliding quietly into bed beside him later, after her own ablutions, she curled herself against his back, kissed the nape of his neck and murmured,

"I do love you, Harry Pearce," before closing her eyes to seek her own rest. Harry slumbered on, oblivious.

The rest of the weekend was spent equally quietly, first avoiding the heat in the morning and then cleaning up the yard after a monster southerly change on Sunday dumped leaves, twigs and hail everywhere in addition to dropping the temperature by almost twenty degrees in as many minutes. Then Monday came and she had to leave him to be a house-husband for most of the week until she could tidy up at work and organise some time off. They were both a bit surprised by how well he took to it, although Hope suspected it was really only because being the stay-at-home one was still a novelty. Whatever the truth, he was genuinely quite happy, pottering around the house and yard, joining her in town for lunch and then exercising his cooking skills (which were considerable, she realised happily) of an evening and she was quite happy to let him do it all, for a change from having to do it herself. Never knowing what she was getting for dinner until it was in front of her wasn't a bad thing, actually...

One evening early in the week, after they had finished the evening chores and were relaxing with a bottle of red on her over-sized, too-comfortable leather lounge she took herself off to one of the spare rooms, noisily rummaging around for a couple of minutes before returning triumphantly brandishing a large book.

"Got something to show you!"

Plumping back down next to him she opened the cover to reveal it wasn't a book but an old-fashioned photo album and he suddenly got both very interested and strangely nervous as she started flipping through the pages of ancestral photos to a few of herself as a child with her family. After that the years slipped by quickly, through the teenage years to the newly-minted Ph.D. in her doctoral gown and a few snaps taken in places as diverse as Quantico in the early 1980's (now _that _was something she hadn't let slip before, three months at the precursor to what was now the FBI's Data Intercept Technology Unit!) through her posting to Beijing later in the decade and in Indonesia in the nineties. By this stage they were almost at the back of the album and she reached out to still his hand just before he turned the page.

"You know who is on the next page?"

He nodded.

"Yes. It's about time I put a face to the name of the man who was – is – so important in your life."

She appreciated that.

"It's 'was', my love. He can never return so it can never be 'is' again." She took her hand from his before adding quickly, "There's a wedding photo. Just so you know."

His smile was slightly crooked as he gathered his nerve to look. _Stupid, being nervous about seeing a photo of someone who died in the last millenium... But he had meant as much to her as Ruth, and Jane before her, had meant to him. _

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't what he saw. From her brief description he had built up some sort of vision of a man with almost movie-star looks but the reality was somewhat removed from that, something he was quietly glad about. There were only half a dozen photos in all – _I've got others but they're packed away _– with, on this page anyway, only one of the couple themselves, looking happy on a waterfront somewhere. The rest were of Wynne, mostly with his army buddies. That was something Harry could warm to straight away – friendships forged under those conditions were closer than normal and life-long – as he gazed at these unknown young men, horsing around in unidentifiable locations. The specific man was, indeed, enormous, dwarfing his comrades by half a head or more and usually half their bulk again as well, with more than the usual muscle development seen in special forces soldiers. A very strong face, not handsome, stared back out of the slightly faded images: long, with heavy brows over bright blue eyes and, almost inevitably, a shock of black hair standing untidly up from his head, he would have been a formidable foe just on appearance alone. It was the smile that gave away the true character of the man, though: almost shy and a little bit wistful, it endeared him to the one who had now taken his place and was reinforced by the look of sheer adoration he was aiming at the much younger Hope who was standing with him.

Smiling slightly himself, Harry turned the next page to see the wedding photo. Not something formally posed but clearly taken after the couple had thought their duty by the photographer done, they were perched on what looked like a timber veranda balustrade with some forest in the background and were laughing gently at something. Another revelation – Wynne was wearing the full dress uniform of a Colonel, something else Harry had never considered. The man had out-ranked him considerably. Turning his attention to the bride his heart caught in his throat. She was stunning, in floor length oyster silk, the fabric wrapped diagonally around her torso leading to an asymmetric neck and shoulderline, her hair – still long then – caught up in a messy bun with the fine mist of veil tucked in the back, he was struck by a momentary shaft of jealousy. It was only momentary, though, before reason exerted itself again.

"You were so happy and would have stayed that way I suspect."

She nodded and closed the album."

She nodded and closed the album.

"Yes, I think so. As you wo"uld have been with Ruth, or probably even with Jane before that, if you hadn't both had the problems you did."

"Maybe. All those alternate futures that are now gone..." He suddenly reached around and pulled her towards him. "However, here we both are and we should make the very best of this future instead!"

Hope had been in intermittent contact with the two potential jobs since her return but hadn't heard one way or the other by the time Harry arrived and, as it was the run-up to Easter, once he _had_ arrived she had given up any thought of hearing from them in the first week he was there. That changed on the Thursday evening.

It was pleasantly warm for once (as opposed to boiling) so she got home (late, due to trying to get everything finished before taking her leave) to find dinner was to be served on the terrace out the back, next to the cooling sound of the small fountain in the garden. Everything was under control but Harry hadn't been able to find anything to light the candles with so she had wandered back inside, glass of chilled red in hand, to fish the matches out of the bottom of the drawer in which they hid, when she heard her mobile ringing. Snatching it up she answered without looking at the caller ID and heard the voice of Simon, the recruiter from the think tank, on the other end.

"Hope, it's Simon Kale, how are you?"

"Hi Simon. I'm fine – getting ready to overindulge in chocolate! How are you?"

"Excellent, thank you. Look, I won't keep you long, I know i's already Easter over there so I'm just ringing to let you know that we would like to offer you the job and I've just emailed you some documentation to fill in."

"Oh! Yes, umm, excellent!" She wandered back outside, leaning against the door frame as he ran through a summary of what was in the contract, including a salary figure that was rather larger than she was currently getting, and a relocation allowance. "A relocation allowance? That'll be handy, although most of my stuff will be going into storage over here anyway because I believe I've got somewhere to stay in London, at least for a while, already." That got Harry's attention. Standing still as he tried to follow her end of the conversation he nonetheless felt his heart beating faster as it became clear that she had got the job...whichever one it was! "So when you want me over there? I'll have to give notice here and pack up so I won't be able to do it for at least a month, I'm afraid."

"Oh, that's alright, there's been a hiccough with one of the other appointees so we'll be a little slower getting going than we were planning. June would do."

"I think I can manage that. What's happened with the other person?"

"The local consultant we thought we had has had to drop out because of ill health. So now we need to find another expert on the local situation – Europe but mostly the UK. Getting anyone any good is almost impossible because they're like hen's teeth, especially anyone with any real experience."

An idea was starting to form in her head but all she said was,

"I'm sure you'll find someone somewhere. There must be enough former operatives from Five and Six kicking around for you to pick from."

Harry blinked at that and frowned questioningly at her but she just grinned while Simon responded,

"Operatives, yes, but we need someone who's been further up the chain than that. Like yourself." The other man sighed. "I know who we'd l_ike_ to get but there's probably no chance. Rumours have been flying around for years of his imminent retirement but it hasn't happened yet."

Now it was Hope's turn to not quite believe her ears. There was no way theg would get that lucky.

"And who would that be? Anyone I'm likely to know? Or shouldn't you tell me?"

"It's no secret. In fact we've been trying to track him down for the past few weeks but he's being bloody elusive. I don't know if you've met him or not but he was presenting the key-note address at that talk-fest you attended in February. Harry Pearce."

She had to stifle a laugh as she walked over to the man in question and leaned against him so he could hear the conversation as well.

"Harry? Yes, I know him. In fact he's supposed to be dropping in to catch up some time in the next few weeks – he's meant to be out here somewhere on holidays shortly, which may explain why you haven't been able to find him."

"Is he? I thought he didn't take holidays. Maybe he _is_ starting to extract himself from Five then..." the other man said, slowly, obviously wanting to ask something more but not quite sure how to approach it until he suddenly said, "Look, if you do see him, could you sound him out for us? Let him know what the deal is and see if he's even remotely interested? We'd kill to get him on board – we'd probably get him to run the show in fact, if he wanted to, or just be part-time if he preferred that."

"I'll see what I can do, if and when he turns up. He's pretty rusted on to Five so I don't like your chances but do you want me to give him your contact details, if he's interested?"

"Yes, please, if you would. We'll continue trying to find him as well so he won't be able to hide forever."

She allowed herself to laugh then and straightened up.

"Okay, I will. Great news, Simon, and thanks. I guess I'll see everyone in June then!"

He signed off and she put the phone down on the table, looking up to find herself fixed by an amber gaze. Winking at him she asked,

"So, do you want a lodger then?"

"Now that was quite the silliest question I have heard for a long time but the answer is 'yes', just to prevent any confusion." He reached out and possessed himself of her hands. "And was the rest of that what I thought it was? I couldn't quite hear it all."

She grinned at him.

"That depends on what you thought it was! If you thought it was a job offer for you as well with the think-tank then yes, it was. Completely on your terms, by the sounds of it. So if you really do want out from under the thumb of the government, this might be your chance as well as mine. The money is rather better than I was expecting, by the way and the stress should be significantly lower as well." Fixing him with a beady eye she added bluntly, "_Are_ you going to talk to him when we let him 'find' you?"

He inclined his head.

"I shall. It can't hurt to find out what he has to offer."

It was more than she had expected because she knew that, deep down, he really was rusted on to Section D and would probably only be prised off with a hammer and chisel at any time before he himself made the decision to leave.

"Excellent!" She held his gaze for a moment and then winked. "Not that you'll take the job, even if you're interested."

He pretended to look affronted but didn't entirely succeed.

"Pardon? You are making decisions for me already, are you?"

She just wrinkled her nose at him.

"Nup. I just know you. You will talk with him politely, give it genuine consideration and then, equally politely, decline the offer because you'd miss the adrenaline rush of the Grid!"

"No, I won't."

"Yes, you will."

He looked rueful.

"Yes, I probably will." Finally pulling her into his embrace he added, "It doesn't really matter, does it? As long as we are able to be together all the time. That's all I really care about." He suddenly cocked an ear towards the music that was playing quietly in the background and smiled. "That's rather appropriate for the moment, all things considered."

It was their favourite Scots band yet again. She had rolled her eyes at him when the CD had started playing earlier but he had defended himself by saying that he had forgotten how much he had liked them in the past; now, yet again, they had words that encapsulated much of what had happened for the couple in their lives recently.

_Like shadows on the wall you come and you go_

_through the streets and the rain that falls down on our sin._

_No more goodbyes, forever, this way,_

_whenever the greatest flame in the world starts burning._

_This is our life and our time and nothing is ever going to break us  
now, we're on our own.  
_  
_Always in your eyes a waking of souls.  
We gaze out on the road that brought us up to this place._

_The signposts never change, we'll go where they lead.  
Whenever the day to break us comes we'll not give in._

_This is our place, in our lives and no one can ever change this moment  
or pull this mountain to the ground…  
_

"It's been a long road, for both of us, but we've got here eventually. I love you, Hope."

Her eyes threatened to brim over at that but, smiling crookedly instead of crying, she answered,

"I'm glad to hear that. I don't do the unrequited bit very well. Which is the long way of saying I love you, too, Harry."

Relief flooded both of them; he hadn't got it wrong this time and for her, she could finally allow herself to realise there was someone else, at last, with whom she could share everything, without hesitation. While things were on a roll he thought he might as well say the rest.

"Speaking of being together, if, in six or twelve months time we have decided that we don't want to kill each other and are quite happy to continue, would you consider making things permanent?"

She gazed at him, steadily, appraisingly, while internally she was dealing with the surprise at his words. Despite what he had said at Greenwich she hadn't seriously considered marriage because it didn't matter to her and she hadn't seriously thought it would matter to him but now... Unsure of what was going on in her mind he added,

"Malcolm is right. We love each other so why not shout it to the world?" A boyish grin appeared as he took a risk and said, "Apart from anything else it will make the visa issue _so _much easier whenever we swap countries!

_The cheeky sod! _Holding her expressionless face for just long enough to cruelly enjoy a tiny flicker of doubt register in his eyes she finally let a grin tweak her own lips before spluttering into a laugh.

"Now _that's _what I like! A man who is romantic but with a strong streak of pragmatic practicality." Kissing him soundly she said what he wanted to hear. "Okay. _If _we haven't decided we'd rather kill each other!"

He suddenly squeezed her tight and lifted her off her feet, consumed with joy.

"I saw a ring this morning but then thought I was getting ahead of myself..." A look of anticipation settled in his dark eyes. "I _did_ get you an Easter Bilby though. A rather large one. Hand-made, out of dark chocolate."

She grinned.

"Glad to see you've got your priorities right: Chocolate more than makes up for no ring!"

Apres un Reve. Gabriel Faure. Performed by Kiri Te Kanawa.

The Greatest Flame. Written by Rory and Calum MacDonald, performed by Runrig.

**A/N: and that is where I am going to leave it. Thank you very much to all of my readers and especially my reviewers, whose words are always welcome.**


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